Warriors of Phaeton: Axis Read online

  “I don’t know if I believe you.”

  Those were the last words Nova remembered hearing before her vision faded away, offering her blessed relief from the slaver and guard torturing her.

  ***

  Nova ran her fingers through her lover’s dark curls, pulling him down for another kiss.

  “Where did you go, wife?” The words skimmed across her collarbone on a whisper as he moved lower, pulling the sheet they were lying under with him.

  She smiled at the tickle of his beard as he worked his way toward her breasts. “What do you mean?” she asked, even as a part of her consciousness realized she must be dreaming. It was the only way to explain why the Phaeton she’d first seen earlier in the market was now in bed with her calling her wife. She was dreaming or had died and had gone to heaven.

  Her husband moved farther down. His lips dropped kisses wherever they landed. “I asked where you went, honey.” His lips closed over the tip of one nipple and he sucked, making her forget everything except for the feel of his hot mouth on her body.

  Nova arched into the contact, pushing her breast into his face as if to demand more. She loved the way his beard scratched her skin a little, making it tingle. Gripping the back of his head, she held him in place as he paid homage to her curves. It had been such a long time since she’d felt anything this good that she was intent on enjoying every single second of it while it lasted—even if it wasn’t real.

  Soon her hands clutched the back of his head, almost too enthusiastically. Her husband chuckled around her nipple as he reached back to remove her hands before she pulled out any of his hair.

  “Sorry,” she whispered with a smile that told him she wasn’t really all that sorry. He riled her up, so part of the blame was on him. “You make me crazy.”

  “Calm down, beautiful,” he assured her with a wink. His gray eyes sparkled with a silver sheen that enthralled her. His tongue shot out, dabbing at the nipple before his mouth. It was already puffy and bright pink from his attention, sending a sizzle from the contact deep in her gut. “We have all the time in the world. There’s no rush.”

  “Okay,” she breathed, grinding against his hard body where he’d settled between her legs. She sucked in a breath when he gently rasped his short beard over the sensitive curve of her breast. “Just don’t stop.”

  “I won’t,” he promised as he slithered lower. He ran his nose across the bare skin of her lower belly before swiping a lick across the sensitive area that had her squirming. “I can’t. You’re too fucking tasty.”

  Nova shivered. She had no idea what she’d ever done to deserve the sex god she’d landed, but she wasn’t going to question it. Nope. Not her. Instead, she was going to grab the chiseled abs she’d been blessed with and ride off into the sunset.

  “I love you, Nova,” he said huskily as he nuzzled the patch of curls that covered the top of her mound. “I love you so much.”

  “I love you too.” The answer came without hesitation as she clutched her dream man to keep him close. She never wanted this to end.

  “Are you ready?” he asked a split second before using his strong fingers to separate her folds. Holding them open, his slick tongue went straight for her clit, batting it back and forth playfully.

  “Ahhhh!” she yelled, arching so hard she would have bucked her lover off if he’d been anything other than a Phaeton. She was a big girl, but her husband was an even bigger warrior. His strong, muscled forearms and torso easily pinned her down to hold her still under his seeking tongue. There was no way she could move unless he allowed her to.

  He raised his head and gave her a shiny grin. “Give me some of your sugar, darling.”

  The room spun around her as she dropped back onto the pillow and gave him what he demanded. Staring up at the chandelier above, Nova gave into pleasure. His questing tongue plumped up her clit until it was an engorged burning bean of sensation before dropping down to pump in and out of her dripping hole. He tongue-fucked her mercilessly, sometimes dipping down to poke at her asshole until she mewled and whimpered. It was naughty, but, dear Lord, did it feel divine.

  “More,” she groaned brokenly. “Please more.” Nova was so turned on her skin practically sizzled wherever they touched. The burn was pure pleasure as it flamed across her skin.

  “Don’t worry, darling.” He chuckled against the inside of her thigh, his grin wicked. “I’m just going to show you how much I missed you.”

  “Please don’t make me wait. I want you so bad.” Nova pulled on his shoulders. Every single thing he was doing felt amazing, but she needed more. She needed him. “I want you inside of me. I need you inside of me.”

  Her pleas must have held some sway. In moments, her husband shimmied his way back up her body until she felt his hardness prod the slit between her legs. Everything about her warrior was delicious, including the heavy weight of his cock as he nudged it slightly in and out of her body.

  Nova scratched her nails down his back in a warning when his teasing continued. It was fantastical, but she was ready for the big guns. Now. She wanted him to fuck her like he meant it, not tease her until she died from old age—or woke up.

  “Nuh-huh,” he tutted as he pinned her arms over her head, holding her wrists against the bed. With a wicked grin as her only warning, he entered with one thrust of his hips, burying the first few inches of his dick into her wet heat.

  “Ahhhh,” she groaned, the sound ripped from her throat at the swift penetration. It was tight, hot, and amazing. “Give me more.”

  “I’ll give you everything,” he whispered, letting go of her wrists to trap her body between his arms of steel where they planted themselves beside her. “Give me that mouth,” he demanded gruffly before claiming her lips in a tongue-thrusting kiss. Braced above her like a cage of Phaeton flesh, he fucked her good and hard as she grunted into his mouth to the rhythm of his claiming.

  Nova pulled her lips away to take a shriek as he pummeled into her with such strength, she could do nothing but hold onto his sweat-slicked shoulders, enjoying the ride. With her knees up and wide open, she accepted him into her body over and over again as he whispered her name to a thumping beat against her neck.

  “Nova.”

  “Yes!” she screamed, her body racing for the pinnacle she could feel was near.

  “Nova.”

  “Yes!”

  “Nova?”

  Chapter Three

  Nova frowned at the pair of familiar voices calling her out of the fantasy she’d escaped to. She’d tried to ignore them in hopes she could continue to hang with the man of her dreams, but that plan wasn’t panning out.

  “Nova?”

  “Is she sleeping, or do you think they finally killed her dead?”

  “Nova?”

  Each word they spoke was pulling her closer and closer to consciousness and farther away from her dreamy Phaeton husband. Damnit to hell!

  “I think she moved.”

  “Should we roll her to the mat?”

  “I don’t know. There is no blood like before, but what if they broke something…”

  “Our poor Nova,” the voices cried in unison.

  Cracking her eyes open, the first thing Nova saw were two pairs of satin slippers. They belonged to her two best and only friends on Euphoria. A part of her wanted to curse them for interrupting her dream before things could finish, while the other part of her was happy she was waking up at all. She considered for a moment her fears that one day things would go too far and waking up would not be an option.

  “I’m not dead,” she groaned, pushing up from the floor where she’d laid prone in a puddle of her own drool. Stretching, she noted the tightness of her “healed” back. It was a familiar sensation, given how many times they’d had to repair the skin on her back. It had happened more than she wanted to remember, that was for damn sure. The healing salve not only protected her open wounds, it also minimized the scarring as much as possible—something that made her slaver happy. “I
feel like I should be.”

  “What happened?” they asked in perfect unison, which weirded her out until she’d gotten used to it.

  Lots of things used to weird her out back before she’d woken up in her current hell and struggled to survive ever since. Now, she shrugged things off that once would have caused her to look twice…or more. For example, her two new best friends were not only aliens, but twin, purple-and-blue-furred aliens that looked literally like human-sized sex kittens. With pointed ears, twitching whiskers and tails, Kalla and Halla looked like they’d leapt off the pages of an anime fantasy. It was no wonder why they were extremely popular in Cruum’s run-down brothel.

  Delicate and feminine, the brothel often overbooked the twins. Of course, their popularity came at a price. Within the house, most of the other slaves were openly hostile, challenging the twins for clients out of jealous rage. Usually, Cruum and Talis kept the others in line, but there were times when the slavers let things slide. Nova had only been in the brothel for a few days when she’d saved the twins’ lives by stepping in after seeing one of their rivals pull a knife. Faced away from their attacker, the twins would have been stabbed in the back, literally, if Nova hadn’t stepped in. Talis, who’d been in the middle of threatening another slave in the hallway, took control of the situation quickly, but in that moment, she’d sealed her fate, making friends for life.

  Her interference won her a beating from Talis and loyalty from the twins. Halla and Kalla watched her back, and she watched theirs. It wasn’t a completely ideal situation, considering she was still a slave and all, but her new BFFs always made sure she was fed and allowed off the chain Cruum kept locked around her neck every now and then.

  “Remember when I mentioned how easy it would be to mix in with the slaves hauling water?” Nova posed the question, figuring she might as well start at the beginning of her tale. They’d often brainstormed ways to escape, and that was one of many ideas they’d posed as a possibility. “Well…it actually was just as easy as I thought it would be. Nobody noticed me the entire time, not even Talis. I just kept the water bucket in front of my face and pretended I was supposed to be exactly where I was. It wasn’t until we got to the market that things didn’t go so well.”

  “What happened?”

  Nova didn’t say anything as the failure she felt earlier came sweeping over her body. She’d waited forever to sneak her way into the line of workers that were allowed out of the brothel house and into the market. She’d thought she’d made it free and clear too, until she’d made a dumb mistake and got herself caught again. She was so goddamn mad at herself she almost couldn’t take it. “I managed to sneak away from the watchers, but Talis found me almost immediately. He brought me back to Cruum and told him what happened,” she admitted. “As you can see,” she said, making a gesture to her condition, “he didn’t like that too much.”

  “Oh, Nova!” they both cried, their identical voices hurting her ears at the high pitch they reached.

  “He could have killed you!” Halla whispered, her eyes taking in multiple slits whipped into the back of Nova’s tunic.

  “I know, but I had to try something,” Nova argued, pointing her finger at the pair who’d stepped in and tried to protect her as much as possible up to this point. The two of them might believe they could continue on like this forever, but Nova knew her time was running out. “I overheard a conversation between Talis and a courier this morning. He said the buyer is coming soon. You know as well as I do what that means. The message said his arrival would be any day now, so I couldn’t wait. After hearing that, I went down to where the other slaves were waiting to leave for water duty and grabbed an empty bucket. I didn’t have a choice, girls. I can’t stay here any longer…not if the buyer is on his way.”

  “Oh no.” The sisters exchanged worried looks and moved forward to hug her tight. Their fur tickled her nose. “We didn’t know.”

  “I know. I thought about coming back here to tell you what I’d heard, but I saw an opening and I took it.” Nova pulled back with a sad smile. “I thought that if I could make it to the market, I might be able to find someone—anyone—to help.” She bit her lip, thinking back to the large Phaeton she’d seen in the market. She didn’t know why he’d popped into her sex dream the way he had, but she wasn’t complaining. Her fantasy warrior had been everything she’d needed, and even though none of what happened had been real, it was still nice to be reminded that she was alive. He was more than welcome to visit any time she passed out from the pain of a beating. If things had gone as planned, she would have been married to one of them by now instead of stuck here.

  “Don’t be tricked,” Halla warned, shaking her finger at Nova.

  Kalla joined, “Don’t you remember the first time you thought you could be saved?”

  “I do.” Nova shivered at the memory that left more mental scars than physical ones.

  It hadn’t been long after she’d first woken up in this nightmare that she’d tried to escape. She wasn’t a dummy. She knew exactly what the aliens had planned to do with her. She knew because there had been two other women with her when she first woke up, and then poof, they were gone. It was as if they’d never been there.

  Her memories were fuzzy, most likely from whatever drug cocktail they’d pumped her full of, but she was positive she’d not only heard two other humans but talked to them. She couldn’t remember their names or what they’d even said to her, but Nova knew they weren’t a figment of her imagination—no matter how much Talis had tried to beat the memory out of her when she’d ask about them.

  The intensity and frequency of her abuse led to her developing the ability to mentally check out whenever things were too bad. She’d slip into a dream-like world to escape. After happening a few times, Nova realized it was a survival mechanism, which she was more than grateful for. She wished she’d had the skill back when the beatings began but accepted that nothing would have likely made them better. The first beating she’d suffered through had been within hours of her waking up. She’d still been groggy, fighting the nausea that came with whatever hardcore meds they’d used to knock her ass out.

  Despite her confusion, Nova was still full of sass and mouthy. That hadn’t lasted long. Within the first few strikes of Talis’s whip across her back, the grogginess had gone away as her body had become alive. With each strike that Talis flung at her, Cruum repeated the details of her new life.

  His words had stung almost as badly as the whip his lacky wielded.

  Nova was no longer free. She was a slave. She’d been kidnapped and sold to the highest bidder. Her owner ran a brothel on a trading planet called Euphoria—a planet that looked like something straight out of one of her favorite movies. A planet she would have preferred to keep on the big screen and out of her reality, in all honesty. Her new home was filled with red dirt, grubby aliens grunting at each other, and a slaver she wanted to strangle to death with the chain about her neck.

  At the thought of her bindings, her fingers ran under the leather wrapped around her throat, checking its tightness out of habit. Her anxiety rose as she felt the unmovable lock fastening the collar around her neck. After a few deep breaths, she bit back the urge to weep over her current situation. It was hard, but she managed. Barely.

  She knew she had to escape, but the twins were right. Another failed escape would likely get her killed, she thought, considering the beating she’d taken after her first escape attempt. She’d asked the wrong alien for help, and it had cost her. The cycle of beatings followed by the twins’ healings had continued for some time before her friends finally caught the master and his muscle’s attention long enough for their tempers to ease. After that incident, Nova had been fit with a collar, and the twins were required to chain her whenever they were with a customer. If they forgot, they would all be punished. On one occasion, her leash hadn’t been properly secured, and the punishment had been so severe, the women vowed to never forget again.

  Even as the memory
made her stomach churn, Nova steeled herself to be stronger.

  Cruum was trying to break her, but she was stronger—she had to be.

  There were a few things she’d learned growing up an orphan. Life lessons taught straight from the reality of the foster care system. The first thing she’d learned was that you had to be tough to survive.

  Rule #1. Act tough, even if you’re scared shitless.

  Showing weakness was like throwing chum in shark-infested waters; it brought out all of the mean motherfuckers looking for an easy mark. Nova refused to go down like that. Decades of surviving her own shitty life had given her a resolve to not die, chained up on some alien planet at the whim of a red-skinned pimp with halitosis.

  She wasn’t a quitter. She’d never had the privilege to give up and take a seat on the sidelines if she wanted to survive, and she wasn’t about to start now.

  You want to live, Nova.

  “Did anyone see you?”

  Nova flinched at the question, flashing back to Cruum’s voice repeating the same words as he dug into her wounds. Shaking the memory away, she instead focused on answering Halla’s question.

  “Yes,” she breathed. Her heart raced as she recalled the big Phaeton who had startled the shit out of her in the market. She didn’t worry about sharing the information with the two in front of her. They’d saved her skin more times than she could count.

  Literally.

  “Who?” Halla asked, fear sparking bright in her feline-like eyes. “If they tell Cruum—”

  “It was a Phaeton,” she interrupted with a shake of her head as his face flashed in her mind. In reality, she’d only seen him a moment or two, but his handsome features were etched in her brain. He was unforgettable. Hell, he’d made such an impression on her in those few seconds that she already had him starring in her pain-induced wet dream. “You told me yourself that Cruum avoids them at all costs.”