He stared down at his sticky hand rubbing Glaia’s back and stilled.
What the hell am I
doing?
Yanking his gaze to Drekk as he wiped his hand on his stomach, he saw that Drekk appeared mesmerised by the action.
“It’s good, isn’t it?” Drekk asked, his voice low and seductive.
“So good,” Glaia moaned as Drekk withdrew and helped her to her feet. He showed her to the hidden lav. When he turned around, he and Ryen shared silence.
“I guess I should thank you.” Ryen didn’t know what to think. What did Drekk mean by sharing this woman for sex? And why couldn’t Ryen tear his gaze from the male?
Between Drekk’s impressive cock and his sparkling grey eyes, Ryen couldn’t look away.
“You’re welcome.”
“Right.”Ryen clenched and unclenched his fists. “So how the hell did I get here? What are these bands?” He held his wrists out to Drekk.
“You’re at my place. After I soundly trounced your ass yesterday, I felt bad.” He winked at Ryen. Mr. Stoic
winked
. “I brought you back here and knocked you out.”
“Yeah, with some kind of scent. Some knock-out drug? What did you use on me?”
“My secret.”
Drekk’s cock, amazingly, swelled again. Ryen’s responded in kind, and he wondered if all male Creations had the same drive. Embarrassed by Drekk’s sly grin, he turned and paced, willing his mind away from Drekk—from sex.
“I want my clothes back. I have to go.”
Drekk sat on the bed and lay back, his hands behind his head. “Why?”
“Why? There’s no why. I want to go.” The thought of imprisonment was enough to spike his adrenaline, ruining the peace he’d just experienced. “You can’t keep me here.” Drekk sighed. “Ryen, you killed two of those barbarians last night. I had to dance around their overlord to prevent him from seeking Barbarian justice. So think about what you’re rushing out to do. This is all new to you, your freedom. And it’s precious. You don’t want to lose it before you can appreciate it, do you?”
“No.” Ryen opened his senses but caught nothing more than Drekk’s willingness to help him. “I want to remain free. What I don’t understand is why you’re helping me.” Drekk glanced at the door to the lav before he answered. “Someone once helped me, and I’m trying to return the favour. You don’t know how many ‘friends’ I’ve had to put down because they wouldn’t take my help. Out of control, they were a danger to themselves and everyone around them. You know what that’s like.” Ryen didn’t want to understand. He didn’t know what he might have said had Glaia not exited the lav. Drekk rolled off the bed and escorted her to the door. He whispered something in her ear that had her laughing and looking back at Ryen.
“Bye, handsome. Anytime you want more fun, you come to Sacha’s at the quad and ask for me.” Glaia sighed. “Yummy.”
Drekk paused with her at the door and said to Ryen, “Wait here for me. Please?” Ryen should have demanded to leave. Should have pushed past Drekk given the opportunity. “Don’t make me wait long,” he growled, wondering why he stayed.
Smiling, Drekk escorted Glaia away.
Ryen waited with a patience that pleased him. He might be annoyed with Drekk for so many unanswered questions, but he couldn’t fault the man’s attempt to apologise.
Glaia had one helluva mouth.
Drekk returned to find the bedroom empty. A noise from the lav answered that question. Sated and pleased with Glaia’s visit, Drekk pressed a few buttons on his hidden control panel. The bedroom engineered two chairs, a dresser and unlocked the armoire.
Drekk pulled Ryen’s clothing from his bottom drawer and set out something for the male to wear.
Then, taking a deep breath, he walked into the lav. The sight of Ryen’s face titled up, his eyes closed as water and solar rays bathed him from head to toe, stoked Drekk’s lust into a roar. Which made no sense considering he’d climaxed twice not minutes ago.
Tamping down his lust—which he thankfully found easy to handle—he held onto his pheromones and waited for Ryen to finish. Much as he would have liked to join the male in the shower, he didn’t think Ryen was ready for that yet. A glance at Ryen’s cuffs had him grinning. Not ready yet, but soon.
“You going to stare at me all day?” Ryen asked, his eyes still closed.
“Just until you get your tight ass out of my shower. I’m a little sticky.” Drekk swore Ryen blushed. “Glaia’s good, hmm?”
“Yeah.” Ryen said nothing more and left the shower. Drekk handed him a towel, deliberately grazing Ryen’s fingers as he did so. The short frown on Ryen’s face satisfied him.
“I’ll be right out. Clothes are on the bed for you. You have the run of the house, but I’d ask you not to leave until we talk.” The first test. He’d left the bedroom door open. He’d also programmed the cuffs not to move past the front and rear entrances of his domicile. The windows had also been magnetically sealed.
Ryen nodded as he dried himself, then left the lav.
Drekk wondered how difficult today would prove. A new game plan, outstanding sex, Ryen’s compliance...
“Controlling asshole,” roared from the other room.
So much for compliance. Sighing, Drekk took his time in the lav. After drying and dressing, he left his bedroom. In the outer room staring out one of two large, laser-proof windows, he found Ryen clad in the clothes he’d laid out for him—trousers and a thin white sleeveless shirt. Annoyance, not fury, darkened Ryen’s beautiful eyes to a midnight blue.
“Why am I a prisoner here when you told me I wouldn’t be?” So sexy when riled. Drekk walked past him to the dining area, aware that by giving his back to Ryen he showed a measure of trust. Thankfully, Ryen didn’t attack, which meant that sex had a remarkable effect on the male. So far so good.
“Are you hungry?”
Ryen glared. “Yeah.”
“Two
glar
steaks,
frell
and
blan
juice.” Drekk waited for the processor to work. “I feel just like my Creator when I order breakfast.”
Ryen blinked in surprise, then gifted Drekk with a rare smile.
The processor finished and Drekk took Ryen’s plate and his own to the table by the second window. “Grab the drinks, would you?”
Ryen did so and sat with him. He looked as if he wanted to say something but the scent of food must have taken his will to argue. As he ate, Drekk explained the reason for Ryen’s ‘imprisonment’.
“The reason you’re here, my friend, is that you need help. No, no arguing while you eat. Hear me out while you devour your meal.”
Ryen frowned but said nothing more and tucked into his food. The return of his appetite relieved Drekk. For the past week the giant had eaten half that much. It seemed Ryen was truly on the road to recovery. Physically, at least.
“As a Creation, we’re built to submit,” Drekk continued. “The first generation of us didn’t take, as you know. They were weak, barely able to function unless told to breathe every day. The second batch was no better. The monsters tortured and killed thousands.
“Those didn’t work either. Gradually, the Creators realised they needed to incorporate both submissive
and
dominant markers into our genetic coding. Unlike many in the System, we don’t have a choice about our natures. Our traits aren’t environmentally stimulated, but programmed.”
“I know,” Ryen said quietly.
“My generation looked promising. We appeared normal. We even acted normal, for the first few decades of our lives. Then, I’m afraid, science proved, once again, that man shouldn’t tamper with things best left in the gods’ hands. Many of my line became homicidal. Those that didn’t killed themselves.” He remembered too clearly the deaths of his friends. Watching Mertan kill his Creator before he understood what he’d done and killed himself.
“Drekk?”
“Death and madness descended,” Drekk said in a hoarse voice. He cleared his throat, aware Ryen watched him without blinking. “I managed to escape with a few others who’d retained their sanity. My only regret is that I failed to kill my Handler. My Creator didn’t fare so well.”
“Good.”
“Once I escaped, I tore through the System looking for a place to hide. The hungers, the need to destroy filled me for years. Like the rest, I was tainted with warring desires. The relief I craved wouldn’t come.” What he’d done before he’d found salvation still haunted him. “Then I happened upon a planet in the outer rim. A man unlike any I’d ever met showed me how to deal with my feelings. How to make the pain go away.”
“Another Creation?” Ryen asked.
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me anything about himself, not even his name. He told me to call him Master.”
Ryen frowned. “Master?”
“Distasteful, but he was kind, nice, pleasant. He drove me fucking nuts.”
“Tell me about it.”Ryen’s sarcasm wasn’t lost on Drekk.
“I tried to kill him several times. To my surprise, he overpowered me. He looked like a Mardu, or even a Nebite. He had pleasing features but not the brawn or overt strength to overtake me, so I thought.”
“A weaker man conquered you, and you enjoyed it?” Ryen’s distaste showed Drekk what he’d suspected of the larger male. Ryen didn’t know what it meant to truly submit. In the labs he’d been forced to endure, to lose to those weaker than himself. Which was why he constantly chafed at Drekk’s decision not to fight him. Ryen didn’t understand yet, but he craved submission—freedom. Until he resolved those conflicting parts within himself, he always would.
“That’s just it, Ryen. Master wasn’t weaker. His internal strength showed me how to control myself. How to adjust to accept who and what I was. Through Master’s teachings, I learned to be myself. To love women and men. To see without prejudice.”
“A lot of bullshit.” Ryen shook his head. “Come on, Drekk. Admit it. You got your ass handed to you by somebody stronger and he broke you.”
“You don’t understand. But you will.” Drekk stared at Ryen’s cuffs.
Ryen tensed. “Explain.”
“When Glaia brought you to bliss, what did you feel?” he asked, avoiding a direct response.
Ryen looked as if he meant to argue, surprising Drekk when he answered. “At ease. Her mouth took me to bliss. The rage I normally feel wasn’t there.”
“Exactly. Like your time in the labs, sexual surrender relieved you.”
“It’s not surrender.”
“You physically release and a part of you that hungers is fed. In the labs, how else did you find a measure of sanity? By fighting, as you’d been bred to.”
“I fuck and I fight. Easy answers.”
So why haven’t you found that same peace here on Mardu?
“Let me ask you something else.
In the four months of limited freedom you had from the labs before they found you again, were you happy?”
“What the hell kind of question is that? I wasn’t free. I was on constant guard defending Anin. You think I have issues? That poor girl could barely function without my guidance. I helped her to decide for herself, to live with a measure of independence, before they found us again.”Ryen narrowed his gaze. “I still want to see her. How do I know those bastard Raggas are helping her? I’m supposed to take your word for it?”
“Yes.” Drekk finished his meal and smiled. “That was really good. I worked up an appetite this morning.” And he meant to do so again.
“Look, you little prick, I want answers. I’ve tried to be patient—”
“A stretch, I’m sure.”
“—but I’m done. I want out of here and I want to see Anin.”
“Your sister is relearning just as you are. Don’t tell anyone on
Mara’s Light
this, but I’d trust Erin with those Raggas, and you know I hold your sister in high regard. Nu and Set Fas won’t harm a female. It’s not in their ‘bastard Ragga’ nature. What you need to focus on is you, Ryen. Anin will be fine.”
“Yeah, well, you won’t be if I don’t get the explanations I need.”
“You always want to fight. I thought sex would have left you in a calmer state, at least for while. I can see I need to re-evaluate things.” Ryen knocked his chair back as he pushed to his feet. He reached for Drekk.
“I’m sorry, but this is for your own good.” Drekk pushed the button of the small handheld device he had in his pocket.
Ryen froze. “You son of a bitch,” he snarled, struggling with the bands stifling his mobility. “I’m going to tear you apart.”
“Not smart to tell me that.” Drekk finished his juice, aware of his own skyrocketing temperature. Ryen in a rage excited him. His cock throbbed with need, fuelled by the memories of things they’d already done together. Standing, he decided to take Ryen’s mind off his imprisonment with the truth.
“What the fuck is that?” Ryen paled, his gaze glued to Drekk’s tented trousers.
“A hard-on.”
Ryen swallowed nervously, and Drekk couldn’t wait until Ryen swallowed
him
again.
“I, ah, I know you like women and men. But if you even think about fucking me...”
“Ryen, I think about it all the time. What it would feel like to stick my dick between those lovely cheeks, to ream that tight, virgin ass. I’d love to suck that strong cock, to taste your seed as it flowed down my throat.” To Drekk’s delight, Ryen grew a massive erection.
“Cut it out.”
“Your Handler had a real problem with men loving men, didn’t he? Did he tell you of the evils of anal sex? Did he convince you that only a woman could contain a man’s seed?” Drekk took pity on Ryen’s panic.
Learned behaviour has to be unlearned.
“It’s okay. They told me that too.”
“Then why are you hard?” Ryen pulled at his arms. “You think you can rape me and I’ll suddenly be healed?”
“Not at all.” Drekk walked around the table and stared into Ryen’s eyes. “I have never raped another, nor will I. Relax on that score.”
Ryen let out a deep breath.
“With you it won’t be rape. Why do you think you want to fight me all the time? Did you want to fight your Handler as much? Your Creator? Did you want to dominate them?” Ryen snorted. “I did dominate them. The only way they controlled me was through artificial means.” Ryen glared at his bands. “A coward’s way.” Anger pulsed and Drekk immediately willed it away. He’d never liked being called a coward, as his Handler knew. Pride had been a huge failing of his, and still was, to some extent. “Ryen, I don’t want to hurt you. A fight between us will be ugly, one I don’t want to win. My class of Creations could...” he paused before he blurted a few truths no one knew.