Flame of the Alpha (2 page)

Dante reached down and massaged his bare cock. He’d be wearing clothes if not for the Festival, but he’d wanted to blend in with the revelers. If Quinn was going to bring the entire crew to this forsaken planet, Dante owed it to himself to enjoy some of the local rituals.

The elaborate, eclectic costumes hadn’t interested him. He’d preferred the look and feel of bare skin as it brushed against him, sending a torrent of sensation to pour across his nerve endings.

Yet none of the erotic delights in which he’d indulged the previous night had been half as alluring as the sight of this lone woman pleasuring herself in the privacy of her garden, baring her body and soul to her patron saint…and to the Alpha who suddenly hungered for her with every cell of his mutated DNA.

* * * * *

It shouldn’t be this hard to find a man
.

The thought flittered through Sophia Rousseau’s mind as the thick girth of the dildo stretched her inner walls. A poor substitute for the real thing, the ivory
godemiché
was said to be fashioned by the first Pleasure Academy High Priestess using the dimensions of the real penis of Saint Valentine himself.

Whether the legend was true or not, Sophia didn’t know. Millions of
godemichés
had been created since then, though the one she currently thrust deep into her pussy was the original item, fashioned over two centuries ago and likely worth millions of tokens to a collector of sexual paraphernalia. Luckily, no one knew the real thing still existed. The Academy priestesses had announced that the
godemiché
was destroyed in a massive fire that was responsible for annihilating a temple and its
Pleasure
Academy
more than eighty years earlier.

The object was a now a true relic, limited only to the High Priestess’ use. She pulled it out gently then slammed it back inside her channel, wishing she could strengthen the connection with her Patron Saint. The
godemiché
helped, but the answers she sought were as elusive as the orgasm she desperately tried to produce.

She’d have given anything for a moment of clarity. The Academy’s eager clients were already assembled for the showing, waiting on her to give her blessing over the unions about to take place. Yet here she was, chasing a fleeting tremor of ecstasy as it slipped through her fingers.

She couldn’t focus. Last night’s Festival had proven more demanding than she’d expected. Carnal images still flashed across the back of her eyelids every time she blinked, bringing with them an overload of sensual impressions. Still, the perceptions were fleeting and distant, like watching randomly changing erotic stills on a
vid
-screen. Arousing, yes, but orgasmic? Not hardly.

She needed something more than she could give herself with a
godemiché
and her own hand. No matter how attuned to her own body, Sophia couldn’t come on command.

Not even for her Saint.

Frustration invaded her system, skimming over already frayed nerves. She thrust the fingers of her left hand farther back, easing her ass cheeks apart, bending low enough to the ground so her nipples brushed the tips of the dewy grass.

Her fingers slid in the damp crack, drawing some of her cream over the puckered hole, teasing the forbidden region with the tip of her thumb. Excitement traveled a swift path through her body, culminating in the heat rising between her legs. She opened herself wider, grinding her clit against the inside of her wrist, plunging the dildo harder, deeper,
faster
.

The statue of Saint Valentine gazed down upon her, his features benevolent, his full lips quirked in a sexy smile. She knew what he wanted from her…what she wanted from herself. And yet she hadn’t been able to give it to him.

She’d failed him in every possible way. Not only had she been unable to find a suitable off-world traveler at the erotic festival for the Lighting of the Flame ceremony due to occur in seven days’ time, but now she couldn’t even offer her patron what she owed him.
Her allegiance.
Her body.

Her essence.

Sweat ran down in rivulets over the curve of her throat to drip into the valley between her breasts. It traveled lower, pooling in her navel and sliding lower still, until it dripped and matted her already damp pubic mound.

An uneven groan echoed through the clearing as Sophia pumped the
godemiché
harder, releasing a waft of musky scent redolent with the aroma of her cream. She stilled, momentarily thrown off balance.

The groan hadn’t come from her throat.

Blood roared in her ears and the sweat trickling down her skin turned to ice. Tendrils of fear crawled up her spine. She was exposed.
Watched.
Hunted
.

Saints, where had that last thought come from? No one at the Academy would be foolish enough to step foot in the High Priestess’ private sanctuary. The patrons knew the rules as well as the pleasure servants and the other priestesses, and none would dare risk the consequences of spying on the High Priestess in the midst of her offering.

Deliberately, she turned her head and gazed over her shoulder, her breath catching in her throat. A tanned, muscular arm wrapped around the side of a large tree trunk. From her vantage point, she had a perfect glimpse of the left side of a man’s body, sculpted to perfection. She gasped, taking in the planes and valleys of his perfectly proportioned form, her gaze lingering on his ridged torso, broad hips, and lean waist.

A dark blond thatch of pubic hair peeked out from behind the trunk, though the man’s cock was entirely hidden from view. Awareness crept in with a potent rush, boosting her throbbing arousal from a mere thrill to raging hunger in the span of a shuddering breath.

Then he moved, and his face came into view, knocking the rest of the air from Sophia’s oxygen-deprived lungs. Long eyelashes fringed golden,
slitted
eyes that peered at her from beneath a tumble of honeyed curls. His mouth had begun to shift, giving her a brief glimpse of full lips as they elongated,
turning
into a full muzzle before her eyes. He tightened his grip on the trunk and her gaze darted to his, the black claws scoring the wood, leaving deep gashes in the tree.

They stared at each other as Sophia’s mind struggled to make sense of what she was seeing. She’d spent enough time around Alphas to recognize one when he invaded her sanctuary, but she’d never encountered another
panthera
leo
before now.

The full impact of that realization made her stagger. Her pussy pulsed around the
godemiché
, tightening around it, pulsing with heat.
The animal inside her responded to the stranger’s presence with a heady, intoxicating wave of pure lust.
Her nipples beaded tightly. Her clit throbbed and her own impulse to shift zinged through her veins, daring her to push past her fear and do what she hadn’t been able to in years.

Electricity zinged between them with the force of a corporeal entity, binding them, keeping her rooted to the spot. And then he took a step forward, baring
all of his
masculine splendor in one graceful move that carried him away from the tree.

Reason crashed through her mind at the exact moment her gaze landed on his solid cock, thrusting proudly against his belly. His shift was incomplete.
The powerful sex organ shimmered, thickened, and lengthened before her eyes, a drop of
precum
dripping unimpeded from the bulbous tip onto the dewy grass.

Myriad questions dashed through her mind, but she couldn’t give voice to any of them. He was advancing, closing in on her. Soon, he’d be upon her, able to trap her with his muscular body and pin her against the statue of her patron Saint, where he’d thrust --

“Oh,
mon
patron
. What have you brought me?”

Before either the stranger or the stoic Saint could answer, Sophia staggered to her feet, pulling the
godemiché
from her folds in the process. She lunged sideways and grazed the edges of her discarded robe with the tips of her fingers, lifting it as she broke into a sprint toward safety.

“Wait!”

Dante’s voice came out hoarse and strained, barely recognizable to his own ears. The woman gave no indication of hearing him as she disappeared into the leafy mass that enveloped the tiny clearing. Sparing only a cursory glance at the statue of Saint Valentine, Dante tried to ignore the nagging feeling that the Saint’s smirk widened just a fraction as he scampered through the bushes after her.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” Branches scraped Dante’s skin as he stumbled through the foliage, trying desperately to keep up with the flashes of bare flesh guiding his footsteps through the garden.

The way she’d looked at him…there’d been something in her eyes that hadn’t resembled fear, though he was certain he’d startled her. No, she’d assessed him as though through a shocked stupor, but there was something else in those deep black orbs.
Something that looked a lot like longing.

He ducked to prevent a particularly large branch from making contact with his forehead. For a brief moment, he thought he’d lost her trail,
then
a streak of blue silk had him changing direction, turning right. She’d picked up her pace, and soon Dante found himself darting between tree trunks and stepping on lush orchids in his mad dash.

“I just…want to…talk --”

The plea echoed through the garden, punctuated by grunts and heavy breaths as he struggled to avoid any large objects in his path. His erection still raged, and it took considerable control to navigate the wild bushes with their thorny branches unscathed.

His scramble toward the mystery woman came to an abrupt end when he careened around a thick tree trunk, jerked sideways to avoid a spiked plant that came up to his waist, and slipped in the dew-sprinkled grass bordering the edges of the garden. His solid, two-hundred pound frame landed with a thump and he skidded on his bare ass all the way into a clearing, which stretched out in front of an instantly-recognizable structure. A groan ripped from his throat even as panic rose in his chest.

Saints be damned
.

As if being abandoned on a planet whose government wanted to destroy him wasn’t bad enough, he’d had to take shelter at a pleasure slave training facility.

Realizing where he was caused his raw stomach to churn, banishing some of the raging lust pouring through his system. Would he never be free of the mistakes of his past? Was he doomed to spend his life running away from the memories that haunted him only to rush face-first into them again and again?

Of all the places in the Universe where he could find shelter, a slave training base would provide him with nothing but pain and misery, the same things it offered to those who inhabited its stark, dreary walls.

Only there was nothing stark or dreary about the tall building that spread out before him. Like every other Saint Valentine Pleasure Academy, this one was housed beside the Temple that guarded it. The main entrance, surrounded by a protective wall, stood elevated from the courtyard by a short set of steps. Sculptures of Saint Valentine contorted in a variety of sexually suggestive poses guarded the heavy doors leading inside. The sight made bile rise in the back of his throat.

Dante gritted his teeth hard enough to feel his jaw ache. Perhaps Vance had been right to push him into seeing a licensed counselor. They’d nearly come to blows the last time
Enigma’s
second-in-command had suggested such a thing. Hell, even when Dante had been part of the Mars General Alliance Space Squadron he’d turned down his Colonel’s order to report for his mandatory psych evaluation after his last disastrous mission. He couldn’t imagine what would make Vance believe Dante would listen to his thinly-veiled suggestion.

Silence descended over the courtyard as at least a hundred pairs of eyes turned to stare at him. Soft gasps and sudden murmurs broke the spell, jolting Dante to the present. He hustled to rise to his full height.

Scanning the area for possible exit points, his gaze swept past two dozen pleasure slaves, marked as such by the broad leather collars around their necks. The men and women were slender and delicate, specially crafted to be aesthetically pleasing to their patrons. He knew that even their voices had been carefully designed to be as arousing as possible, especially when lifted in cries of ecstasy.

Or in screams of agony.

Saints, he still heard those screams in his nightmares. He could even smell the smoke, thick and gritty as it clogged his throat. The sound of the horrific crash still boomed in his ears every night, along with whispers that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

You killed them. You killed them all
.

He forced himself to look away from the pleasure
servants,
unable to face the truth of what they were -- of what he’d done to others like them -- and his gaze fell on the mystery woman.

She stood at the top of the steps leading into the
Pleasure
Academy
. Fully dressed in a silk robe and no longer kneeling, the confident stance of authority in the way she held herself upright was unmistakable. Her black hair fell in soft waves around her shoulders to tumble over the low neckline of the garment molding to her lush curves. The fabric hung all the way to her ankles, hiding the bounty of her body, reminding him of the way she’d trembled when she’d shoved the dildo inside her and circled her anus with the tip of her finger.

Damn. There had to be something severely wrong with him. His cock throbbed so hard, it ached. When he should have been thinking about ways to escape, he was spellbound by the haughty way she stared down her nose at him. Her chest still heaved from exertion, pulling the fabric of her robe tight across her breasts. Her nipples pushed the material, tenting it slightly. Dante’s mouth watered. He wanted to taste those beautiful nipples, to nip and lick them, to swirl his tongue around them until she cried out in pure ecstasy.