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  He traced the rude scar again with a hooked claw, white eyes narrowing to slits as he drew an image into his mind of its creator.

  Zeric Arctos.

  The smirk on Crortek’s mouth turned to a snarl, revealing row upon row of needle-sharp teeth in the window’s reflective surface. The crime lord stared at his reptilian reflection, seeing the glowing golden eyes of the Terran Boundary Guardian instead. Seeing them change until they were the eyes of a savage animal unlike any he’d seen before. An animal capable of beating him.

  Zeric Arctos.

  The scar seemed to burn under Crortek’s clawed finger at the name, as though to mock him.

  Zeric Arctos.

  Spinning around, Crortek stared at the holo-image of Lyso’s bleeding, ruptured body again. “It will be you there soon, Arctos,” he hissed, the spines on his back flaring. “I will find both you and the Raavelian slut and make you watch as I tear her limb from limb. Then it will be just you and me. I have great plans for you, Arctos.” A cold smile stretched his mouth and he dragged his claw down the length of the scar on his cheek once more, staring at the suspended hunk of dead meat that had once been his top Bliss dealer. “Great plans indeed.”

  Chapter 2

  The chain felt heavier than normal. Zeric studied it in his hand, running the pad of his thumb across one fat, solid link. The walk from the brig to his quarters had been a torturous test of willpower, the desire—no, the need—to go to Jaienna like the necessity to draw breath: undeniable. Yet deny it he had and now here he stood, his blood still boiling, the beast still simmering in his veins, snarling for release.

  He closed his eyes for a moment and saw the human hands at the end of his arms change, watched his blunt fingernails turn to claws. His heartbeat tripped and he snapped his eyes open. Jezu, what the fuck was going on? Once, only anger freed the beast in his blood but since he’d met Jaienna Ti… A shudder wracked his body as the beast roared and flexed within. Since the Raavelian entered his world his tenuous control on the ancient Terran curse was weakening.

  With every molten, explosive orgasm she wrenched from his body, with every drop of cum she milked from his cock, the beast grew stronger, wilder, until it threatened to take over with just the faintest breath of her scent. And then she’d saved him from Crortek.

  He knew she didn’t care what he became, but when he became the beast, he didn’t know himself. When the beast took over he became a creature ruled by base instincts, not the beating of his human heart. He didn’t like that creature. Didn’t want to be that creature. Not at all. But he didn’t seem to have a choice anymore.

  An image—brutal and horrendous—flashed into his head: his ex-wife, Leyna. Dead and mutilated on their bedroom floor.

  Sharp pain wrenched at Zeric and he gripped the chain harder, nails digging into the flesh of his palms with agonizing force. Leyna knew all too well what the beast was capable of doing, what its base instincts made him do. Leyna and her lover.

  A growl rumbled low in his throat and Zeric dropped the chain. He was a fool to think he could have a life again, a life with a woman who loved him. No matter how much his body wanted her, no matter how much his heart wanted her, Jaienna Ti was off-limits. Leyna’s deceptive blood on his hands he could live with, just. But Jaienna’s…

  He dragged in a long, steadying breath and the soft, musky scent of her sex, so recently pressed to his mouth, invaded his body. His cock twitched between his thighs and he scowled. The sooner they docked at Ry’l the better. The isolated spaceport was the “regroup” location whenever he and Jak had an unforeseen separation on a mission and Zeric had no doubt he would find his partner and Jaienna’s sister there. He would see Jaienna off the Reaper without hesitation and he and Jak could returned to task. Their orders to bring in Hrung Crortek still stood, regardless of the fuck-up on Pellaxion Four. The only way to do that was to get rid of all distractions.

  He drew another breath and Jaienna filled his highly tuned senses again, making his cock pulsate harder. Hungry, eager and deprived.

  Jezu, Arctos. Don’t you ever—

  “Incoming communication. Guardian Thorson.”

  Zeric started, the sound of the Reaper’s computer cutting his self-disgust short. Moving from the bed, he snatched up a pair of discarded trousers, shoved his legs into them and then stormed across to his communications station. “Receive.”

  “Hey, partner.” Jak’s voice emanated from the com-link, its boyish tone belying the Yrathian’s lethal edge. “Where the fuck are you? I’ve been stuck here on Ry’l forever, waiting for you and Jaienna to turn up.”

  Zeric’s mouth stretched into a caustic grin. “You’ve been stuck there for what, three hours max? And something tells me you’re not in any hurry for me to get there.”

  Jak Thorson wasn’t fooling anyone. Raavelians were his one weakness and Jaienna’s sister was a perfect example of her species: blonde, violet-eyed and smoldering with sensuality. Her face had been hideously scarred while Crortek’s slave, but Zeric suspected Jak would pay for that scarring to be removed, if he hadn’t already.

  He shook his head. The Unified Parliament’s best Boundary Guardians brought to our knees by two tiny Raavelian sisters.

  “How far away are you?” Jak asked and Zeric didn’t need to see his partner’s face to know just how deep Jak had fallen. Jak was a romantic. A romantic capable of killing a fully armed Boaronian in half a second with his bare hands admittedly, but a romantic nonetheless. Beautiful, victimized, enslaved Bhelais would be a challenge too tempting for Jak’s heart to resist.

  A vivid image of Jaienna in the throes of sexual rapture suddenly filled Zeric’s head and he suppressed a sigh. Two sisters. Just two sisters… “Four clicks,” he answered, pushing Jaienna from his mind. “We’ll be there within two day-cycles. Is Bhelais well?”

  Jak’s pause said more than words ever could. “She has some… unusual tastes,” he answered, and Zeric was amazed to almost hear embarrassment in Jak’s voice. “How ‘bout you, partner? Is Jaienna being nice?” There was another pause, this one heavy and pointed. “Or are you back in those chains again?”

  Zeric gave the com-link an impatient scowl. “As soon as I arrive in Ry’l you and I are going after Crortek again, Jak. I hope all those hours between the sheets hasn’t turned you soft.”

  Jak chuckled, the sound somehow mirthless and strained. “Far from it, partner. Far from it.”

  “Hrmph.” Zeric shook his head. “You just better be ready to go when I get there. No excuses and no passengers. Jaienna and Bhelais stay on Ry’l. Understand?”

  “I understand you need to stop letting the beast in your veins control your whole ph’ekn life before the best thing that’s ever happened to you gets the shits and fucks off.”

  Cold anger ripped through Zeric and he clenched his jaw. “What I do with my personal life is none of your business, Thorson. I’ll be there within a day. Be ready.” He punched the com’s activation key, simmering with rage as he killed the connection. A raw sigh left him and he stared out the port window at the blackness of empty space.

  …the best thing that’s ever happened to you…

  …I don’t care what you become, Zeric… the beast… the werewolf… doesn’t scare me…

  Pulse pounding in his ears, Zeric studied the chains hanging from the wall above his disheveled bed.

  …I don’t care what you become, Zeric… Don’t shut me out. Please…

  He’d run from what he was his whole life.

  Aren’t you tired of running, Arctos?

  Throat tight, chest tighter, he turned, walked across the room, through the hatchway and out into the corridor. Jaienna’s quarters were on the other side of the Reaper—exactly sixty-nine steps away. There was a dark irony in that small fact, an irony that had tortured him night after night, hour after hour since he’d denied his body what it wanted more than anything else.

  The Reaper’s engines hummed as he moved through the ship, a low sound accompanied
by an even lower vibration that set his nerves alert.

  Sixty-nine steps.

  Sixty-nine steps to release. Sixty-nine steps to acceptance.

  Sixty-eight steps later, he stood staring at a closed door, muscles tighter than Elaxian steel.

  Even through the heavy metal door he could sense her. The delicate, clean scent of her skin; the somehow exotic spice of her hair, all mingled with the musky undertones of her sex. An intoxicating combination, leaving him reeling, aroused and petrified all at once.

  He wanted nothing more than to open the door, throw her on her bunk and bury his hard, aching cock in the tightness of her pussy. Wanted to feel the slick folds of her sweet sex engulf him completely. She could. She had. Unlike any other female he’d been with, she fit him to perfection.

  An image from a dream flitted into his head—their bodies entwined on the floor of his quarters, her wrists encased in the shackles of his chains as he slid into her sodden slit, the bulbous head of his cock parting her velvet nether-lips as she used those very chains to lever herself from the floor and impale herself on his cock’s long, rigid length.

  Heat lashed at his body.

  Every night since leaving Pellaxion Four he fucked her in his dreams. Every day he fought to erase the dream from his mind. Every day he failed, still hungry for the taste and feel of her.

  Zeric closed his eyes and, seeking control, filled his lungs with a deep, slow breath.

  Again, Jaienna’s scent filled him.

  Again, his cock throbbed.

  And the beast stirred.

  Rip open the door. Throw her to the floor and fuck her. Drive your cock into her sweet cunt, her tight ass and own her. She is yours. Take her. Take her every time and anyway you want. Listen to her screams as you fill her cunt. Mark her so everyone will know she is your property. Your bitch. Mark her so no one will dare look at her but—

  Zeric’s eyes flung open and he stared hard at Jaienna’s door, chest heaving with one sucked-in breath after another. Jezu. What the fuck was that? Who the fuck was that?

  Him? Or the werewolf?

  You, a grim voice whispered deep in his mind. You are the beast. You cannot be divided. What you are is what you are. A creature of base hungers. A creature that kills. A creature that fucks…

  Of its own accord, his hand reached for the locking panel, the creamy taste of Jaienna’s pussy already on his lips, the tang of her blood in his throat.

  Stop.

  Zeric jerked his hand from the door, hooked claws sinking into the flesh of his palm. Pain like a slicing blade tore up his arm but he ignored it.

  What had he been about to do?

  “God, Arctos,” he muttered, staring hard at Jaienna’s door and seeing the werewolf stare back.

  His body ached. His cock throbbed. The blood in his veins ran wild and thick. But above it all, was the pounding beat of his heart, the one organ still connected to his soul—his soul—not the beast’s. And that one organ, so small yet so vital, told him exactly what to do.

  With one last look at the closed door, he turned and ran for the brig at the far end of the ship.

  He wanted Jaienna. Not just to fuck, but for life.

  And because of that, his heart wouldn’t let him anywhere near her.

  For her sake… and his.

  * * * *

  Jaienna heard him go. Heard the almost inaudible slap of his bare feet on the cold floor.

  “Zeric…” A numb heaviness settled over her heart and she rested her forehead against the chilly steel door of her quarters.

  She’d known the second he’d arrived. It wasn’t just the way her body had begun to tremble, the way her nipples had pinched into rock-hard peaks longing to be suckled. Nor was it the way her pussy pulsed and grew wet as she detected his somehow carnal scent. It was the way her chest pulled tight and her stomach turned into a churned mess of fluttering nerves.

  The second he’d stopped on the other side, she’d crossed to the door. Stood there. Waiting. Ready to give herself to him utterly and irretrievably.

  She’d been a sex slave, an Intel-Patrol Corp agent and an assassin. She knew the wretched vileness of the Outer Boundaries. Knew it firsthand. Life was harsh and brutal and only the heartless survived it. Better to be a ruthless assassin than a woman capable of feeling anything. Raq Tornada had taught her that lesson all to well when she’d begun to forget it. Being dead inside meant you couldn’t have your heart ripped out. And she’d survived that way for a long time. Until Zeric came along and changed it all. Or so she had thought.

  But it wasn’t to be so.

  She closed her eyes, a pain unlike any she’d experienced before tearing at her heart. He’d rejected her. Zeric had rejected her.

  There was no point staying any longer.

  It was time to go.

  Chapter 3

  “Come back here, Jak,” the husky voice called from behind him, low and oh so teasing.

  Jak Thorson stopped at the entry hatch of his cell, the low hum of Ry’l’s sub-eno engines vibrating through the small room and into his gut. His fingers curled around the edge of the door, the pull of the woman stretched naked on his bed behind him like the drawing force of a collapsing quasar: impossible to fight, deadly to succumb.

  “Jaaaaaak…”

  She drawled his name, her voice like honey and smoke, and for a fleeting moment Jak wondered if Jaienna Ti knew her baby sister was as skilled at seduction as she.

  “Jak. Come back.” The rustle of sheets told Jak Bhelais had moved on his bed and an image of her long, lithe and very naked limbs tangled in the soft Hetap silk flashed through his head. His cock twitched in his leather trousers, eager and hungry for what she offered. For what he’d tasted already. What he was quickly becoming addicted to—an irony not lost on him at all.

  “Come back, Jak.” Her whisper caressed his sanity. “I want to feel you sink into my dripping pussy. I want to fuck you until I scream and then suck my cream from your thick, long cock.”

  He gripped the doorjamb tighter.

  “Jaaaaak…”

  Blood roaring, breath shallow, Jak turned.

  She was perfection. The space station’s cosmetic surgeon had performed a miracle. The hideous damage Crortek had done to Bhelais’ face was gone. Where once mangled, knotted scar tissue covered the entire left side of her face, now a countenance of exquisite, unmarred splendor stared back at him. Sons of Urik, it may have cost a cycle’s worth of his own chits but it was worth it to see her looking so stunning.

  He ran his gaze over her naked perfection, stretched full along the bed. She was gorgeous. A creature of pure beauty.

  On the outside.

  Jak’s gut twisted with squirming tension. On the outside she was exquisite, but on the inside… On the inside lurked a creature of wicked, insatiable lust. A creature created by Bliss and trained by Crortek.

  A creature of sex.

  As if she heard the dark thought in his head, Bhelais smiled, the twin dimples creasing her faultless cheeks making his cock twitch. “I’m waiting for you, Jak,” she murmured. Her eyelids fluttered closed before she peeked up at him through long, thick golden lashes, tapered fingers tracing a tantalizing circle around her taut right nipple. “You don’t want me to suffer, do you?”

  Jak’s cock twitched again, the tight leather of his trousers an abrasive caress on its fevered length. When he’d translocated her from Crortek’s personal sex club on Pellaxion Four he’d had no idea she was a Bliss addict. She was Jaienna’s little sister—that’s all: a young Raavelian woman in need of saving.

  He’d promised Jaienna he’d keep her safe, but keeping a Bliss addict safe was not an easy task at all. The insidious aphrodisiac penetrated a user’s blood system, elevating their oxytocin and synthesizing a rapid surge of dopamine to the brain, making them crave sex. Making them need it more than breath. But with each Bliss hit, the chemical composition of their blood mutated until it could no longer exist without the drug to maintain its integ
rity. A Bliss user deprived of the drug faced a slow and excruciating death, starved of blood and ultimately oxygen. Unless—that was—their dopamine levels could be maintained naturally.

  Bhelais regarded Jak through her golden lashes, fingertips now trailing a lazy line across the flat plane of her belly to her shaved sex. “I’m beginning to hurt, Jak,” she whispered, arching into her hand as her fingers sank between the smooth columns of her thighs. “Please take the pain away…”

  She knows everything in your head, Jak. How else can she manipulate you so easily?

  The same way Jaienna did?

  No. Whatever it was Jaienna had done to him after they’d fucked, it had left him completely dazed, unable to control his own mind and actions. After his seed burst from his cock into Bhelais his head was perfectly clear. He knew exactly what he did with Jaienna’s younger sister—and by Urik’s blood, he could not stop. Telling himself he was saving her life just made their coupling defensible. In the few hours she’d been in his company he’d found himself lost in her body over and over again.

  “I’m hurting, Jak.”

  Her hand stirred against her pussy and Jak’s nose filled with the musky scent of her juices… and the sweet undertones of Bliss. She wasn’t high. It had been too long since her last hit, but the drug never left the system, even after just one shot.

  “Druentia wept, Jak, please come and fuck me.”

  He stared at her, heart hammering in his chest, cock throbbing between his thighs. It rammed against the taut muscles of his abdomen, engorged length and bulbous head demanding attention.

  “Save me, Jak.” Bhelais slid her hand from her pussy and lifted her fingers to her parted lips, the tip of her tongue flicking out to taste the cream there. “I hurt so much and only you can take the pain away.”