Under By Treaty (SciFi Romance) (7 page)

He flinched as she stepped in and stroked his shoulder gently, leaving a small kiss on his cheek with her warm, wet alien lips. “I sincerely
hope that you learn your lesson well. It brings me no pleasure to cause you pain. Unfortunately, the way of pain leads to trust. The Qui will decide your trustworthiness during culmination.”

The las
h against his back came without warning. Jaden screamed. He couldn’t help it. The burning lanced through skin and muscle down to bone. The second lash was across his shoulder blade. Jaden’s legs collapsed from underneath him.

He begged for mercy.

The third lash took out the back of both legs. The fourth and fifth burned his sides. The next three ensured he would not be able to sit down. She finished by tearing into his back.

Jaden hung by his arms and cried. The burning intensified until he was thrashing about to
escape the pain. He felt steel fingers grip his chin and force his head up.

“It hurts doesn
’t it, Jaden?” Her voice cracked on his name. Through the fire engulfing him, he heard her gasp for control.

He whimpered
, blinked tears away, and glimpsed shadows of misgiving straining her face; tense alien eyes shone with compassion even as she shook her head.

“Tonight is a taste of what you will face if you turn on a Qui subject again.
You are property. You do not have the right of defense. It is the Qui’s right to defend you as she sees fit. The moment you assert independence of your noble, you challenge your noble’s right to oversee your welfare. Earth is outside our Empire. The K’lahn will show you no mercy for such disrespect.” Sonil’s voice faded in and out. “Culmination requires your devotion, your unquestioning obedience, your surrender to your Qui’s every whim. While you obey her will, you must trust her to protect you from what cannot be endured. Do you understand?”

Jaden was beyond speech. He mumbled a noise, but even he had no idea what his brain was trying to say.
He felt her wipe away his tears. She was showing him a jar.

Inside was something
white and moving.

Jaden
recoiled in horror. The thing had hundreds of little feet, two protruding eyes, and hairy tentacles on its nose. The worm was approximately six centimeters long, as wide as a toothbrush. As Jaden watched, the creature opened its mouth. Tiny sharp teeth stretched back into its body.

“Ple
a…” He couldn’t get the word out. “No…” he tried.

She grabbed his head and tilted it back.

Jaden clamped his mouth shut. He felt the worm’s tentacles tickle his nostrils.

“Ukkhm,” he protested, trying to shake his head, but Sonil held him immobile. He
yelled as it burrowed up his nose.

Sonil released him from his bonds. He collapsed to the floor.
Tried to crawl away from her. An instant later, she was dragging him across the room by his ankle. He kicked out to no avail. His body burned. He could feel the worm eating its way through the back of his throat. Then he felt cold bars at his back. He twisted around as she bolted the cage wall in place. He tried to stand and instantly hit his head. He gripped the bars and shook the cage as hard as he could with no effect.

Then his back turned into a white hot poker that took him out of the physical world and
plunged him into Hell.

*****

Sonil curled into the deep recliner in her main quarters and tried to close her mind to Jaden’s desperate cries. Please let this agony end soon. She couldn’t work. Sleep. His pain and misery tore into her and her head was a confusion of doubt and guilt. It was now early in the ship day and she felt wrung out like a wet rag. She needed a break from his screams and rattling and pleas for release, but her duty was to see his punishment through to the bitter end.

This was for his benefit
, his survival at court.

He had to learn there were consequences to rebellion
, and the punishment had to be so cruel he would never invite it again. If he did, she would repeat the lesson for his own good, but this first time he was like a child learning that hitting solid objects hurt.

She wondered h
ow long he could endure the worm before descending into madness.

The sudden silence took her by surprise.

Not much longer.

She
leapt off the sofa and charged into the bedroom. She stared at the unmoving figure huddled into one corner of his cage.

“Jaden?”

He did not respond.

She raced over and ri
pped the cage apart to get to him. She gripped his head and stared into unseeing eyes. He had switched off. Madness followed. With shaking hands she pulled out an electronic device from a pocket and placed it under his nose. The device mimicked the chyt’s mating call and the worm’s response was usually quick.

An agonizingly slow minute passed… and
nothing
.

“
Skal! Hapt kesh ja?” She increased the call’s urgency and seconds later, a white head emerged from Jaden’s nostril and encircled the device.
Genkiye!
She removed the chyt and sealed it in a glass container beside the cage, making sure to screw the lid on tight.

Jaden
lay huddled on the ground, almost comatose. She dragged him up and slapped him. When he still did not respond, she slapped him again.

He moaned in protest.
Then his eyes shot open. Pure terror filled them. His next sound was a pain-filled howl. The worm might be gone, but the fires of the scytah’s mark would stay with him for several more hours.

“Jaden! Look at me!”

His eyes rolled around in his head and then slowly focused on her. A momentary flash of fierce hatred brought the man she knew back to life. He struggled in her arms until she pulled him into a tight hug, breathing soft murmurs into his ear.

She stroked her fingers through his hair, willing him to relax by sound,
touch, and the light secretion of a soporific pheromone on her breath. He sighed into a troubled sleep in her arms, his brow furrowed.

Satisfied
Jaden would recover she laid him down on her bed then took a seat beside him, needing to watch over him a little longer. His vulnerability to her and her world stirred emotions deep inside her, powerful feelings she needed to control for the sake of everything he cared for. She did not think she could apply such cruel punishment a second time, although he could never know that.

Sonil bowed h
er head, conscious that succumbing to her feelings too quickly could kill him. She wanted to move past this harsh, aggressive phase of his training, but he needed her to stay strong. Soon he would accompany her to D’ron; the K’lahn planet would give her a chance to test if he finally accepted her instruction and his place. She traced the contours of his face with a gentle finger, praying to her Qui ancestors that he had learned this lesson.

It would be a
long, hard journey back to Court if he had not.

*****

Jaden could not shake the feeling that the writhing worm was watching him. It sat harmlessly in a jar on Sonil’s workstation. But its eyes were aimed in his direction and its mouth was attached to the glass like a sucker. He forced his gaze away and tried not to fidget, desperate not to attract Sonil’s attention.

How long
would she make him stand here?

“You
’re unusually quiet,” Sonil observed, putting down the tablet she had been reading. She uncurled her legs and rose to her feet. Jaden forced himself to hold his ground.

He flinched when
her hand touched his naked back. She let him settle and then ran her fingers up and down his spine. He trembled, half-expecting a burning sensation to send him climbing up the walls.

He felt
only the light tickle of her nails scraping over-sensitized skin. The pure agony that had engulfed him in the cage had passed away. He had woken up to find his body unscathed. However, the memory would not dissipate so easily, and nor would the knowledge that Sonil had inflicted the captain’s retribution on him.

Retribution she had freely offered.

“Please don’t give me to Markl.” The plea came out before he could stop it.

She began to massage a tight knot between his shoulders.
“You can take whatever Markl chooses for you.”

“How can you know that?”

“I won’t submit you to anything you are physically or emotionally unable to endure. Markl understands this.” Her fingers pressed deeper. “Relax, Jaden.”

“
It’s hard to relax with that fucking worm watching me.”

She
released him, picked up the jar, and placed it in one of the storage panels he was forbidden to touch. The simple consideration touched him; he could almost feel she was watching out for him. She’d stepped between him and that K’lahn punk of a captain. He’d thought he’d bought it there for a moment. Her punishments were brutal and cruel, but rarely delivered twice, rebellion a pointless exercise.

She closed the door.
“Better?”

“Not really. You
’re still here.”

She smiled.
Apparently he amused her.

She moved before him and began to kiss his chest. “Do I scare you, Jaden?”

His cock twitched. “Too much to deny it.”

“
What if I wanted you to make love to me?”

To his surprise,
Jaden had to think about his answer. “Wanted or ordered?”

“Wanted.”

He shook his head. “Then no.”

Her hand reached down
and grasped his balls. He tensed. Blood rushed towards her fingers. Denying her created a sexual frustration equal to any torture she could inflict on him. He craved the feeling of release it would bring him, however fleeting.

“
I want you to make love to me, Jaden, but it has to be your choice. Surrender has to be willing. Start with me. I can feel your desire. Tell me to stop, if that is what you truly want.”

“I
…” Jaden’s stock rejection stuck in his throat.

She’d made clear she wouldn’t force him, never punished him for refusal, and b
efore last night he would have chosen death over making love to her. Now there were places he would do anything to avoid. He didn’t want to be here. He hadn’t chosen to be here. But he was stuck on this path to culmination with the Qui, and the only way to hold on to some semblance of General Jaden was to find a purpose that made sense. He had been prepared to sacrifice his life for Earth. Better to sacrifice his soul for Earth than have it beaten out of him. No doubt that was the reason Johnson and Rooster had betrayed him; they had bet on him realizing that.

“
What about…” He struggled to wrap words around the question.

“What
about what, Jaden?”

His face reddened. He couldn
’t believe he was seriously considering this. “Protection… I mean cross-species.”

She looked amused. “Our physiology is sufficiently different
to prevent unwanted consequences.” She seemed sure on the point.

“
It won’t mean anything,” he had to say.

Her fingers traced a line from the base of his balls to the top of his cock that left him stiff and
aching.

Then she stepped away.
Come-to-me eyes tempted him. “Make love to me, Jaden.”

He understood she was releasing him
, giving him the choice, but for a moment he could not move. The thought of her body under his spurred him on. He stepped forward and swept her into his arms. She gasped; he had taken her by surprise.

He was a little shocked too.
The K’lahn were denser in tendon and musculature than humans, but her slight body was feather weight. Where the hell did her strength come from?

“Okay?” he checked
, more for his safety than consideration for her.

Her answer was to entangle her arms around his neck. He felt fi
ngers crawl through his hair, the coiled tension in her body softened.

Make love to me
, she had said.

He carried her into the bedroom
and laid her on the bed. Her arms fell above her head, her fingers curled up. She was relaxed, watching him. Her back arched. Her lips parted.

Jaden
was mesmerized. This woman who had terrorized him for weeks was turning into a sex kitten before him. His glance dropped to the folds of material covering her swelling breasts. Her chest rose and fell with her breath. He fought down a rising panic; he couldn’t see any fastenings.
Crap’s sake
. He was a general in Earth’s UR defense force. And he was terrified of ripping a dress off a female K’lahn begging to be fucked.

She sat up an
d placed a finger on his chest.