Chapter One
“Gitoff me!” Tara cursed and squirmed as she was grabbed by impossibly large hands. She’d been stuffed in a cramped container for what felt like forever, pushed into the confined quarters by two men who had materialized behind her while she had been foraging for food in the woods outside her village. Tara was used to all sorts of dangers out in the forest, but big men in armored suits weren’t among them. They hauled her out of the crate and held her between them as she tossed her head, her bright red hair flailing along with the rest of her as she glared with spitting green eyes at her captors.
“Who are you? What do you want?” The questions tumbled out of Tara’s mouth until the signals from her eyes managed to bang their way into her brain and she noticed that she wasn’t anywhere even vaguely familiar. The room she found herself in was pure white, the walls and floor and ceiling a seamless plane of material she did not recognize. It was lit without any obvious source of light. No candles. No lamps. Just a light coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once.
“Where am I?”
She continued to glare at her captors, two blond men whose muscles were rippling with the effort it took to keep her in their arms. She was much smaller than they were, but her struggles for escape were making it difficult to keep her under control.
They took her from the white room, carrying her past a window along the way. The view revealed a vast black nothingness, and below that, a bauble of blue and gray and green. Somehow—she did not know how—they were floating high above a planet. A planet that was not Earth. She knew what her planet looked like thanks to the old books stored in the library. The planet below was deeply alien. Even without knowing what Earth looked like, she would have known she was no longer near the planet she had been born on. There was a hollow feeling in her stomach, a feeling of pure distance that was echoed in what she saw outside the window.
“Who are you? Where is this?”
They still didn’t answer her. They didn’t even seem to notice that she was talking, which was odd. Everything had been odd since they’d pulled her from the forest. They’d given her something before they’d put her in the box. Something that made her feel all dreamy. They had poked and prodded her with all sorts of things, making her alternately uncomfortable and sleepy, and now that she was roused… angry.
They carried her into a smaller room and locked her inside it. It had another window, one she glued herself to, her hands on either side of it as it began to move. They were descending toward the planet below. It was a stunning sight, but a frightening one too. How could any of this be possible? The world she had grown up in was one of crumbled long lost technologies. There were records, here and there, of long lost wonders, but Tara had never thought she would see one. She definitely didn’t think she would be captured inside one.
Her attention was pulled from the window as the door behind her opened and her captors appeared once more. They were dressed strangely, in dark suits that were skin tight and made of some kind of material unlike any she’d seen woven by the seamstresses in her village. It was light and strong and she knew it could deflect a sharp blade because she’d tried to stab one of them with her gathering knife when they had taken her and it had slid off as if it were made of dull wood, not the sharpest steel the smith had in his forge.
“This one’s a fighter,” one man grunted to the other as he tossed Tara over his shoulder. “Fresh off-planet. He will be pleased.”
“I hope so,” his companion said. “If we fail him again that will be the end of us.”
“Who is he?” Tara snapped the question again. Again, they ignored her, and she wondered if maybe they couldn’t understand her. That was strange, as she could understand them perfectly well.
“Put the hood on her,” the other man said as Tara lashed out with an open mouth. “It’ll stop her biting and might settle her down.”
“Sure,” the other snorted. “I don’t know how you settle one like this, but I don’t think a hood is going to do it when half our stock of sedatives didn’t.”
They were talking about her like she was a horse that needed to be blinkered. She tossed her head around as they tried to put the hood on, but they got their way as they had before and soon the world went dark.
As one of them had predicted, the hood didn’t stop her fighting in the slightest, but it did stop her from seeing the world around her. She was carried through some space into another space and then she was placed on a soft surface, which did settle her slightly as it was the first comfortable thing she’d encountered since being taken. And then she waited. She didn’t know what she was waiting for, but nothing happened for a very long time. Every time she tried to stand up, she was pushed back down into a seated position. They still didn’t talk to her.
“He’s coming,” one man finally said to the other in the darkness.
“Shhh,” the other replied.
They fell silent as a door opened, then erupted into panicked sounding greetings.
“Lord Kyren!”
“Gentlemen…”
Tara heard a deep rumbling voice that was much more powerful than those of the captors, as if it belonged to a creature greater than either of them.
There was a pause and even with a bag over her head, Tara could feel the tension in the room rise. The masculine growl came again, deep with displeasure. “I paid for a six-month expedition and you bring me one specimen?”
The excuses began immediately, tumbling out of the big men’s mouths. “It’s a difficult planet to get anything from. And this one was a difficult catch. She fought us. Almost escaped. We couldn’t let her warn the others. We had to hunt her.”
“And?” The question was delivered in a low, unimpressed growl.
“I… it took time, my lord.”
The captors’ voices were becoming shakier and more concerned with every passing moment. It also sounded to Tara as though they were coming from closer to the floor, as if the men were cowering before their displeased lord.
There was a disappointed sigh. “Well, let me see what you’ve got. Bipedal, I see. I don’t have much capacity for bipeds—as you well know.”
The hood was pulled off swiftly and Tara found herself looking into the face of the most magnetically attractive man she’d ever beheld. He had eyes of bright nebula blue, slightly narrow in aspect as if he were perpetually examining everything around him. His face was long, and his jaw was quite square. Dark hair descended across his forehead and fell about his ears.
He was human, she was almost sure of it. Or maybe not. There was something super-human about him, both in terms of scale and energy. His skin was a healthy tan, as though he had been basking in the light of multiple suns. The hue of his skin made his eyes seem all the brighter and more piercing, ringed with dark lashes and punctuated by dark pupils, which expanded as he inspected her. He was much larger than she was, much larger than the men who had captured her. He must have been at least eight feet tall, and broad as well. Tara felt a quiver of fear deep in her belly as she looked at him and her skin tingled all over, goosebumps rising down her neck and arms. He was the strangest thing she had ever seen, attractive and yet also somehow fearsome.
His gaze had been angry when it first fell on her, but the longer he looked, the more the little lines around his eyes creased into marks of a smile.
“I send you across six galaxies and you return with one female.” His voice didn’t sound angry anymore. “Fortunately for you,” he said as a smile spread over his lips, “you’ve managed an exquisite and rare specimen. She is an original human, I take it. From Earth?”
“Yes, sir,” one of the groveling men said.
Kyren’s eyes lit up at the confirmation. “Have you treated her for radiation poisoning?”
“Yes, sir,” the man said. “Three injections, all delivered in the buttocks. She has been well throughout the journey. Our monitoring indicates that she is as healthy as can be expected.”
“Mhm.” Kyren put his hands on Tara, clamping her by the hips and lifting her as if she weighed nothing at all. He turned her over onto her stomach and Tara let out a little squeak as she was upended, her backside examined by the large man with the regal bearing. Her thighs were pressed apart, her sex parted by his fingers that were clearly practiced.
“And a virgin,” he said. “Very interesting. Have you given her the language implant?”
“Yes, sir,” the handler said. “The implant is set to input only. She understands us, but she cannot speak our language.”
“Is there a reason for that?” Kyren held her in place, his fingers still on her downy lower lips as he questioned his men.
“We set the implant to two-way communication, but she only had unpleasant things to say,” the handler replied. “We thought it best to deactivate the speech functions before presenting her.”
“Ah, so this one is a handful,” Kyren said, his tone somewhat affectionate. He seemed pleased by the revelation. “I do enjoy a spirited pet.”
“She will not accept her fate easily, sir,” the handler said. “That I can promise.”
“You will be paid your full fee,” Kyren said abruptly. “Leave us now. I want to be alone with my new pet.”
The men scuttled out of the room looking glad and relieved. Tara was left with her bottom in the air, the simple shift dress she had sewn herself floating about her armpits. It was perfectly suited for easy movement through the ravaged forests. It was not at all suited for providing any kind of modesty from hulking great alien men.
The man who now seemed to think he owned her ran his fingers over her bottom to the soft skin where her left cheek met her thigh and pressed against something there. She felt a soft click, as if he had manipulated something under her skin.
“There,” he said. “Now you can tell me your name.”
Tara didn’t say a word; instead she tried to squirm out of his grasp. It didn’t work. He gripped her easily, one large hand around her hip, the other around her thigh.
“Easy, pet,” he drawled. “There’s nowhere to run.”
His words turned out to be true. He held her in place and began to speak as he continued his examination of her sex, his fingers stroking her outer labia with a gentle touch.
“You are a fine specimen,” he murmured. “Unlike many creatures from your planet, or women on this one, you are fertile twelve times a lunar year and able to become aroused at any time. In fact, unlike the women of this planet, whose cycles are linked to a slower sun and who only become interested in intercourse once in a very rare while, you are hyper-sexed. Before the tragedies which befell Earth, it is almost certain you would have been mated well over a hundred times by now, likely by several partners.”
He spoke in scientific terms, but there was nothing scientific about his touch. It was animal and it made her feel more animal too.
“You must be so frustrated,” he murmured. “To be in the bloom of your womanhood and to have never been touched this way before. It’s not fair, is it.”
“I have touched… myself.” She used her words for the first time to make the admission.
He chuckled softly. “I imagine you have. I imagine you have rutted against everything you could, pushed toys inside yourself perhaps, but nothing as wide or as satisfying as the hard male flesh you need to spear between these lips.”
Tara let out a little moan, her legs spreading for his touch.
“You need to be played with, don’t you, pet?” His large hand stayed between her thighs, two thick fingers brushing lightly over her lower lips, coaxing the liquid of desire out from within her. It was a gentle and skillful stimulation that did not overwhelm, but rather enticed her toward further arousal. His words were like a song, delivered in a soft growl that put her into an erotic haze as his fingers found the little button at the apex of her lips and began to roll softly around it. She was wet, and he was using her juices to pleasure her.
“Some pets can be left for a long time without much in the way of attention. But not you. You need to be mated often. You need to reach climax daily to truly blossom. And you need to be filled here…” His index and ring finger parted her lower lips and the pad of his middle finger found the wet entrance to her body.
Tara let out a soft little moan. He was discussing her needs in what sounded like a dispassionate way, but there was an intensity to his voice, something in the way he held her that made her respond to him with increasing excitement. This was a man who knew precisely what she needed, right down to the smallest detail. He proved such by circling his middle finger just at the entrance of her body, then sliding it away, leaving her wanting more.
“Tell me your name, pet,” he urged as his fingers stroked higher, avoiding her pussy. “I need to get to know you before we go any further. I never take a woman before knowing her name.”
Woman, or pet? What was she? Both, perhaps? There was no choice but to talk to him. She wanted to. Had to.
“My name is Tara Dyrek,” Tara said, continuing to squirm as much as she could, though now her motion was no longer intended to get away, but to try to move his fingers back toward her pussy. “Who are you?”
“I am Kyren Cirrus,” her pleasurer said. “I am a lord of this planet and many things besides. Most relevant to you… I am a collector and curator of alien life. You are my latest acquisition.”
Tara squirmed around enough to look at him. There were a few lords on earth as well, men she’d never met, but had heard terrible things about. Most men did not survive on Earth, thanks to a virus that twisted them at conception. The ones who were strong enough to withstand the sickness and the radiated wilds were not usually good or kind.
“You can’t collect people,” she said. “That’s not right.”
He smiled at her, those stellar eyes gleaming.
“I do as I please, Tara,” he said. “And I take what I please. You please me.”
“Why?”
“You are unique,” he said, his hands tracing soft patterns over her skin, her thighs, her hips, her stomach… “you are beautiful, and you are part of an ancient bloodline. The human organism first evolved on Earth. Did you know that?”
Tara didn’t know what his words meant, but she knew what his touch was doing to her. Soothing her, making her anxiety fade with every sweep of his long, warm fingers. He was right in thinking no man had touched her before. There were none in her little village. Hadn’t been for years, not since she was young. The last time a man came, several babies were born, all of them female. Rumor had it that there were some men over the great river, but the bridge had been swept away in the old floods and nobody had risked making the crossing. Tara had accepted that she would live her life as the other women did. With her hand for pleasure and no man.
Her first introduction to males had been the two great hulking men who had captured her. They were rough and crude and they had cruelly deprived her of her freedom. She hadn’t found anything attractive about them at all, but Kyren was different. He had a beauty that was very different than any a woman could ever have. His face was chiseled with strong bones and his eyes drew hers irresistibly. She had not seen eyes like that before. Their blue was flecked with bright gold, their expression intense as he kept caressing her slowly and comfortingly.
“I don’t know much about anything,” she said, telling the truth. Her village was remote, which was why it had survived the worst of the disease that had struck down men and women alike, but was particularly virulent in men. She had been born into the ruins of civilization. Her house was in the remains of what had once been a small eating place. A big yellow ‘M’ still hung over her doorway. Nobody knew what it stood for. Tara liked to think it stood for Mary. That had been her mother’s name, and she liked it.
“I’ll teach you,” Kyren smiled. “I’ll teach you many things, pet, starting with what your body is capable of.”
His fingertips found the hard little nub of her clit and used her juices as lubricant as he rolled the tender bud between them. Tara grasped at the cushion, holding tight as the man who called her pet strummed her toward orgasm.
“Good girl,” he praised as his other hand rubbed the entrance of her pussy in slow circles, two fingers dipping a short way inside to swirl about the tight entrance of her body. Unlike other women, Tara had never pushed toys inside herself. She had rutted, like he said, ground her pussy against objects hard and smooth alike when the need got too much to contain. Being touched by another was a world away from touching herself.
Kyren pinched her clit lightly and made her body buck as she laid prone on the floor with her ass raised, her bottom bouncing as he stroked and petted her to a state of wanton desire that made her lose all sense of shame and shyness.
He had become master of her body and was urging her to heights of pleasure she had never found on her own. She lifted her hips high toward him, displaying herself in accordance with the strong instinct that was rising in her.
“Come for me, pet,” he ordered in a soft growl. The fingers that had been stroking her clit now landed in a light spank above it. Her orgasms, once experienced alone in the privacy of a rotting restaurant, now belonged to him. His fingertips landed more sharply a second time, slapping the soft padded flesh above her clit where the down of her pubic hair protected her.
Kyren watched as the young woman squirmed on his fingers eagerly. If she had been one of the civilized ladies of Udine, she would have been too mortified and genetically frigid to enjoy his touch, but this human hadn’t been taught to be modest with a man and she had been created in an environment where response to male desire was eager and immediate. She had been a little frightened at first, but her fear was soon forgotten as he toyed with her sex, strumming and slapping and rubbing her to climax.
Her arrival had been a great surprise. The traders who had brought her had been lazy of late, bringing him common specimens of little value and even poorer health. But with this catch, they had completely redeemed themselves. He was thrilled with her and beneath his formal clothing, his cock was rock hard with desire. He could feel it throbbing against the fabric. The flowering lips of her pussy were gorgeous, glazed with her juices and swelling by the moment as he played with her.
He wanted nothing more than to plunge his cock deep inside her and fill her with his seed, but she was a virgin, and more than that, she was a brand new arrival. She needed proper care, and a good, long fucking. In that order.
The high-pitched breaths coming from her in soft whimpers as her bare bottom gyrated before his eyes drove him to the very edge of his self-control. Her scent was alluring, and the closer she came to orgasm, the richer it became. She was woman, pure, essential woman, curves and petal-like lips dripping with need.
Kyren pulled his fingers from her sex and replaced them with his lips. It was a reckless act. Her fluids could have contained any number of pathogens from the distant planet from which she had originated, but something deep in his DNA compelled him to taste her. He parted her lower lips with his fingers, baring the delicate inner folds of her pussy and pressed his mouth to her sex, lapping his tongue along the length of it. She tasted earthy and rich and delicate and utterly beautiful. He played the very tip of his tongue along each of her folds and dipped it inside her gently. Her moan in response to the touch of his hot tongue made his cock painfully hard. He was pleasuring her, but torturing himself.
He pulled his tongue from inside her and began lapping at her clit with gentle but hot wet strokes. She let out a cry of need and ground back against him, her motions greedy and wild with desire. Kyren had to hold her hips to keep her in place as her squirming threatened to tip her off the pillow entirely. It was time she came. He needed to see her orgasm. He needed to feel it around his fingers, if not his cock. He pushed two digits deep inside her hot, clenching pussy as he continued to tongue her sex and in moments she was coming wildly, her bottom hole winking as her inner walls clenched at his fingers, which were not deep enough inside her to pierce her hymen, but deep enough for him to feel the strength of her climax.
Panting and moaning softly, she closed her eyes and kept her bottom high as Kyren stroked her mound gently.
“Good, pet,” he praised. “Very good.”
Tara had never before felt the way she did in that moment. Light and floaty, and oh so satisfied. She didn’t know how he’d produced such strong sensations in her body, but she liked them very much. Her pussy and clit were still tingling, and she was absolutely sodden with her own juices.
Kyren slid his hands away from her hips and allowed her to sit upright. Though that disappointed her at first, it did give her the chance to look around the room for the first time and take it in properly. It was very different from the white room. It was a large square with wood-paneled walls and a soft carpet beneath her toes. She was sitting on a large purple cushion, one of the many bold ornaments in the opulent space.
“Is this your house?”
“This is one room inside my house,” Kyren said with a laugh. “Would you like to see more of it?”
Tara nodded. She was curious where a man like Kyren lived. She didn’t think it would be anything like the village.
“If you’re going to come out of this room, you’ll need to wear this.”
He produced a slim silver circlet from his pocket. Tara didn’t know what it was until he slid it around her neck and it closed on itself in a seamless ring.
“Hey!” She tried to pull it off, but there was no way it was moving. It was as though it had welded itself shut immediately. She looked at him with a mixture of annoyance and panic. “What did you do?”
“That’s my collar, Tara,” he explained. “It performs several functions, but most important, it marks you as mine. The world you’re about to explore is very different from the one you’ve left. You’re used to running free, but you can’t do that here. You need to stay by my side, do you understand?”
She nodded slowly and suspiciously. The collar was a weight about her neck, not so heavy as to cause her any discomfort, but more than heavy enough to make her feel possessed.
“Collars are for animals,” she complained. “Take this off.”
“Collars are for pets,” Kyren corrected her. “And that is what you are. My pet.”