Timtur, p.16
Timtur, page 16
“You already had your turn, in case you forgot.” Laughing, she placed herself carefully astride his hips again, lowering herself onto his now fully erect, rock hard cock inch by inch, making sure to bring her own muscles into play to increase the sensual torment.
The bars at the head of the bed creaked under his grasp as she sank the final inch and had him firmly seated deep inside her. Lily sat absolutely motionless, head thrown back, savoring the pent up strength of the man beneath her, holding himself at the edge until she was ready to release them both.
Slowly, she began to move. “You can touch me now, but I stay on top this time.”
Timtur needed no second invitation to lock his huge hands on her hips and encourage her to move faster, while he pumped his hips
Lily leaned over, hands on the mattress beside his head and he adjusted his position to ensure they stayed firmly locked together, in sync. He closed his eyes, and visibly relinquished self-control to the overwhelming sensations she was giving him. Entranced by the way he reacted to her, enjoying the moment, Lily went with him as he drove deep one final time but retained enough self-control to place her teeth on the right part of his shoulder to administer a quick, firm bite, not breaking the skin but definitely meant to bruise so the claiming mark would set.
“Mine,” she whispered as she collapsed on top of him to delight in the last echoes of her own intense pleasure.
“Yours,” he agreed, enfolding her in a full body hug. “Proud. Happy.”
She drowsed with Timtur for perhaps half an hour before making long leisurely love to him in a gentler manner, less frantic than the claiming had been. Then Timtur insisted on giving her the best sink bath he could manage with the cold water from the cell’s sink, tearing her jumpsuit and using part as wash cloth and part as makeshift towel.
“This is all well and good,” she said, reclining with an elbow on the one skinny pillow, soothed and relishing his attentions. “But what am I going to wear in the morning? I’m too tired to climb into the other cell to retrieve a fresh jumpsuit.”
“My shirt,” he picked it up from the floor and giving it a good shake. “My mate should wear something of mine, and it’s big enough to be a dress on your petite frame.”
“A short dress. Works for me.”
As he rinsed himself off at the sink, Lily rose and put the camouflage shirt on, rolling up the sleeves and belting it with one of the leftover strips from the torn jumpsuit. “What the well-dressed mate wears to a dominance battle.” Her voice shook a little and Timtur came quickly to give her a hug.
“You shouldn’t watch, even if Akkarmogg brings you to the arena,” he said, voice low and deadly serious. “I’ll have to fight like hell to kill Vattan, like the animal the scientists bound into my DNA, and it’s going to be brutal. You don’t need the images in your head. I don’t want you looking at me later and seeing the ugly things I’m going to have to do to prevail. I know how upset you were by Vattan’s fight with Ronan, and this will be worse to your eyes.”
She shook her head, circling his waist with her arms and resting her head on his broad chest. “You need your mate to stand proud and support you. And I’ll always see you through the filter of my love. You’re going to do what you have to do to survive because I need you with me. Always.”
“Akkarmogg may take underhanded action to ensure Vattan wins, you know. We have to be prepared for the possibility.” Timtur held her close. “He hasn’t chosen to bracelet me so far, but he could before the fight begins.”
There was no good answer to that one. Lily blinked back tears, frightened and sad about the coming ordeal. “Do you have any idea when Aydarr and the pack might get here?”
He shook his head. “Camron told me he’d sent the coms burst to the valley, but we’re too far away to receive a telepathic response. We’re on our own for now.”
Fully dressed, they returned to the bed, Timtur sitting against the bedframe and Lily curled up next to him, and waited.
CHAPTER NINE
She was drowsing a bit, dreaming she was safe in the sanctuary valley, walking beside the lake with her mate, when Timtur jogged her arm.
“I hear them coming down the hall,” he said.
Her heart fell, and she had the shakes. It was impossible to accept that the moment had arrived when they’d be separated and the next time she was anywhere close to Timtur he’d be fighting for his life. Lily scooted off the end of the bed and her mate stood up, holding out his hand to her. Together, they walked to the front of the cell and, as the door opened and the lights came up, they stood together, Timtur slightly in front as if to shield her.
Akkarmogg stopped in mid step when he saw them and swore Khagrish curses as the security guards moved past him to take up a stand with weapons drawn in front of the cell. The two lab techs gaped at the sight of Lily next to Timtur.
“This is my mate,” she said, holding her head high, pride in Timtur woven through her spine like steel. She stared right into Akkarmogg’s eyes and fury rose in her heart that this good-for-nothing arrogant scientist had the power of life and death over Timtur. Over her. If she had a blaster in her hand she’d take great pleasure in shooting him in the heart, which was such an unusual way for her to feel she nearly laughed at herself. But there was nothing humorous about the situation and she’d gladly kill Akkarmogg if doing so would save her mate’s life.
“How did you get in there?” Flushed, tapping his toe on the floor, the Khagrish used a sharp tone for his hasty question, as if expecting Lily to be cowed by his displeasure.
“Found this in her cell, sir,” said a guard, stepping from the cubicle where Lily’d been confined and holding up the rations container. “The vent grate was open.”
“Resourceful little bitch, aren’t you?”
Timtur growled. “Don’t talk to my mate like that.”
“I’ll do any damn thing to the human that pleases me,” Akkarmogg said with his usual arrogance, rubbing his finger along one bushy red eyebrow as if to emphasize the sign of his high caste and rank as he glared at Timtur. “You’re going to go peacefully with my guards and prepare for one on one combat with 901. Your scent on her will only infuriate him more so you’re shortening your own life, 817. I’m sure she’ll relish watching the gallant way you die for her.”
Lily had decided during the long night she wouldn’t plead or beg Akkarmogg for mercy. He was determined to carry out his plan, and she was going to show nothing but confidence in Timtur. “You should let us go before my mate kills the subject of your deluded scientific experiment.”
“I’ve heard quite enough from you.” Aiming the device at her, Akkarmogg twisted the dial on the neurocontroller he held
Lily collapsed, her entire body awash with pain. Screaming, she writhed on the floor while Timtur tried to scoop her into his arms, yelling over his shoulder as he did so. “Turn it off, you bastard. She’s human. You’ll kill her with the bracelet.”
Through the fog of agonizing sensations, as if burning from the inside out, Lily heard the scientist’s voice, as calm and dispassionate as ever. “Give me your word to do as we say, to go with my guards peacefully?”
“Anything you want, just stop punishing her.”
There was a submissive, pleading note in Timtur’s voice she’d never heard before and she hated being the cause of him yielding so much of himself to the Khagrish but she was helpless in the grip of the agony.
The pain ebbed, and Lily clung to Timtur, trying not to faint, vomit, or to cry. “I love you,” she whispered.
He brushed a kiss on her lips and rose with her in his arms as the cell’s force barrier winked out of existence. “Let me put her on the bed before I go.”
“Fine.” Akkarmogg’s voice was sharp. “Is she breeding?”
“None of your fucking business,” Timtur said, his voice a snarl. Carefully, he deposited Lily on the mattress where they’d so recently claimed each other and then the guards motioned for him to step away and kneel. “No matter what happens today, even if I die, promise to live on,” he said, watching her. “I love you.” Timtur stared only at her as his hands were bound behind him and a collar control locked around his neck. Then he rose in response to a command from the officer in charge of the guards and walked out of the cell.
Lily forced her trembling legs to support her weight so she could hasten to the cell door and watch as Timtur marched out of the medlab with his escort of armed guards. This was the single worst moment of her life so far. She felt as if her body had been hollowed out and all rational thought suspended. This couldn’t be happening to Timtur and to her, yet it was.
The door slid shut, cutting off any sight of her lover.
Akkarmogg studied her from his vantage point on his favorite stool. “I might leave you in your present ridiculous outfit. The male’s shirt, I assume? It’s guaranteed to inflame 901, and I want him to be in a killing mood today.”
Livid at the Khagrish cruelty at the same time she was frantic with fear for Timtur, she let her voice rise into a shriek. “You and your people are the worst, most vile garbage in the galaxy. Someday the Sectors will take you and your customers down and punish you for the evil you’re doing. I hope I live long enough to see it. I’ll spit on your grave.”
Laughing, the scientist slid off his perch. “The way Dr. Gahzhing hates your sister, I doubt you’ll outlive your so-called mate by too many days, once I make my deal and hand you over to him. He’ll probably torture you on live com feed to get her to give herself up and then he’ll kill you both. Of course, if you are breeding he might let you live a bit longer. Pity I don’t have the right scanner here to find out, and it’d take too long right now to calibrate one to your body type. I have other priorities today.” He headed for the door. “Bring her. We need to make sure the arena is ready for the fight.”
A guard took her by the elbow and led her out of the medlab, through a corridor, and outside. Blinking in the sun, which she hadn’t seen since the day she’d arrived at the complex, Lily checked the dusty hills surrounding them, wondering where Camron was hiding and if there was anything he could do to help Timtur. Surely the two had communicated about what was going to happen?
“Quit dawdling or I’ll use the neurocontroller.” The guard hauled her to the left, behind the lab, where the Khagrish had created an enclosure out of force barriers, sparkling in the sunlight at the edges and boundaries. A lab tech stood beside the pen, tapping on a handheld.
“Dr. Akkarmogg wants her there,” the tech said, pointing with the stylus. “In her own little box where she can get a good view of the carnage and the males can see and scent her, but can’t reach her.”
The guard thrust her into an area roughly eight feet long by three feet deep, attached to the larger force field. She would indeed have an unobstructed view of the fight. The fourth ‘wall’ of the box closed with a sizzle, and Lily was trapped.
Another, larger enclosure was set up next to hers and the guards placed chairs and vid equipment into it. Soon enough Akkarmogg and the lab techs entered the more generous space and the force barriers were securely closed, with guards standing close by.
“Like your front row viewing box?” The scientist laughed.
Lily turned her back on him and walked to the end of her small space. She clenched her fists, fighting the pounding in her temples and the anxious gnawing pain in her gut, hating her helplessness, unable to do anything to save Timtur. A bellowing echoed in the building behind them, and she recognized Vattan’s voice, calling her name. As she took a deep breath, a gap opened up in the force wall of the arena and the alpha-born strutted into view, staring around the area suspiciously.
Lily did a double take, hand to her mouth. She hardly recognized him anymore. The Khagrish drugs and DNA treatment had made him into a grotesque parody of a Badari, bulked up with muscles on muscles and huge talons that apparently couldn’t be retracted weighing down his hands. His fangs dripped an iridescent blue substance matching the way his veins glowed in the sunlight and, when he directed his attention in her direction, sniffing the air, his eyes were the same eerie blue. He made a beeline for her cage, then bouncing off it in his haste.
Rubbing his chest as if the force barrier had delivered only a mild shock, he grunted. “Mate.”
Lily swallowed hard. Pity for him threatened to overwhelm her, but he’d chosen this fate, and he was going to do his best to kill her lover so she steeled her heart. Yanking at the collar of the shirt she wore as a dress, she bared her shoulder to show off the golden mark Timtur had given her. “I’m not your mate. I’ve been claimed by the man I love.”
Vattan roared, throwing himself at the barrier, raking the force field with his claws, seeming to disregard the electrical shocks he must be enduring from the contact. “Mine!”
Unable to stop her instinctive panic, Lily retreated as far as she could go.
“Get away from my mate!” Timtur had been allowed into the arena, and now he challenged Vattan from the other side of the space with a roar that echoed off the force barrier walls.
Turning, the alpha-born straightened to his full height, now close to 8 feet , or so Lily estimated. He yowled a challenge in response to Timtur and rushed toward the other man. Lily was proud of her strong, determined mate, standing tall and loose, ready to take on the threat to save her. Timtur hadn’t been fitted with a bracelet and the control collar was gone, so apparently Akkarmogg intended his twisted version of a fair fight after all. Biting her fisted hand so she wouldn’t scream, Lily couldn’t breathe as the fight began. Timtur neatly sidestepped at the last second, tripping his opponent in the process. Vattan sprawled full length in the dust but quickly rose, shaking his head. The two men circled each other, each displaying his fangs and talons.
Both combatants were nearly naked, dressed only in loincloths, to better show off their astonishing Badari musculature for Akkarmogg’s vid, Lily supposed. Vattan had always been a sizable Badari, but now he stood a head taller than Timtur and obviously outweighed him by quite a bit as well. Ripped and fit, Timtur moved with a feline grace, on the balls of his feet, gaze locked onto his opponent. He made a feint, trying to draw Vattan off balance, and the other man went for it, again completely missing Timtur, who danced away.
Lily gasped as she noticed huge slashes on Vattan’s leg and chest, dripping the nauseating blue blood. Timtur had struck so fast she hadn’t even seen the blow.
Vattan grunted but straightened at once. Lily groaned in dismay as she realized the wounds on the younger man were already healing. Icy fingers of fear worked their way down her spine. How can Vattan rebound so fast from such major injuries?
As if reading her mind, Akkarmogg leaned in her direction. “Did I mention I’ve increased the speed with which the animals’ bodies self-repair? 901 has a few other surprises in store for 817 as well.”
Vattan, stop this nonsensical fight and join with me against the enemy. As he watched the younger man climb to his feet, wounds disappearing with astounding efficiency, Timtur tried appealing to whatever vestige of Badari might remain inside the other. Telepathing to him was unusually hard, especially at this close range, like trying to push a message through mud. He closed the telepathic channel in his mind entirely after the one attempt, not wanting Camron to distract him from outside the lab complex at an inopportune time. There was nothing helpful his packmate could say now.
The alpha-born altered Gen 9 shook his head as if trying to dislodge Timtur’s message and roared. “She’s not your mate.” Vattan circled Timtur just out of arm’s length, blue eyes like shining pebbles in a horribly contorted face.
Timtur pivoted easily to keep his opponent in sight. He fanned the flame of hatred in his heart for what Vattan had put Lily through, and for delivering her to the Khagrish. The powerful emotion sharpened his adrenaline surge and determination. He needed the renewed focus to shake off the regret that the enemy had once again managed to pit Badari against Badari. “She’s my mate, and nothing you do can change our bond.” He was proud of the claiming mark, golden in the sunlight on his bare shoulder.
“The stupid mark means nothing.” Lowering his head, Vattan charged again, hands out, claws fully extended, as if hoping to head butt Timtur in the face. Slipping under his guard, Timtur hit him in the chest, arms extended to keep the other from closing in. Timtur buried his claws in the muscles of Vattan’s chest, shoving him hard.
Roaring, the alpha-born staggered, caught his balance, and attempted to catch Timtur in what would be a fatal hold. Timtur fended off the intended contact, ducked and danced away. The strangely hued blood tracked down Vattan’s body, drying in the heat as the wounds again closed rapidly. Timtur knew he couldn’t heal nearly as fast and, if he was going to disable Vattan, clearly he’d have to create massive damage, to overwhelm the Gen 9’s improved immune system. He kept moving as he strategized.
All Timtur wanted to do right now was keep Vattan off balance and assess his fighting style. The standard techniques of Badari doing battle with each other seemed to have left the younger man’s head. Muscle memory had apparently taken over in favor of a straight-on style aimed at overwhelming an opponent and taking him down, presumably to have his throat torn open.
Not happening. Parrying another blow and sidestepping, Timtur shook his head. The Khagrish had obviously sacrificed all the intelligence of a Badari in favor of brute force and fearlessness.
Now Timtur bore slashes on his arm, and he snarled. The wounds were superficial and healing, but he’d let the other male get too close. A dangerous mistake. He stayed in place as Vattan charged again, taking a step forward to strike first, raking his claws across the Gen 9’s chest and abdomen. Vattan stumbled, howling, and Timtur got in a few more blows while his opponent was off balance.
