Burning Ceres Read online

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  She roused briefly as she felt a warm cloth being stroked down her body, and as her attendant realized that she was awake a soft female voice encouraged her to relieve herself. Hands guided her into the facility chamber and she took care of her other needs.

  Those same hands helped her rise and led her to a shower. The warmth of the water soothed muscles that she had never used in her life. The water flowed through the mating mask and cooled her fevered flesh. The porous nature of the leather had never been appreciated by her before this moment, but the water creeping between her skin and the mask was so soothing she almost cried.

  Being at the mercy of her biological urges had never seemed more frustrating than at this moment. Her skin could feel the warmth of the water but it paled in comparison to the heat coming off her flesh.

  The hands were gentle, as if bathing an infant. She had every nook and cranny washed with astonishing thoroughness. And kindness considering the words of the housekeeper when she had arrived.

  She practically expected to have an icy bucket thrown over her to wake and refresh her after the formal first day was over. Not this. “Thank you. You are being very kind.”

  “It was your first time, that requires a certain amount of energy to keep oneself for the first mating for as long as you did. You must have remarkable self control.” The soft voice was amused and Ceres vividly recalled the smell of blood in the room that had not really abated. Her blood. All over the sheets. If Raanan was smart, he would send the sheet to her father as proof of her honour, and gain some new properties for the offspring that they would have.

  “Keeping untouched was tricky, but predicting my heat cycle was science. Each time it hit, I hid in a medical tank and waited it out.”

  “Very ingenious. Not many would have thought of it.”

  “Well, my thinking is a little off the beaten path. And I was desperate at the time.” A soft chuckle from her companion and she was rinsed a final time to get the soap off her, then led to a massage table and asked to lie down.

  Soothing oils were poured onto her skin and she groaned as muscles were loosened by no-nonsense hands that worked at her tissues with the goal of relaxing her. After the first few minutes of pummelling, Ceres found herself nodding off.

  The hands had moved to her lower spine and were now working on her buttocks and thighs. As she drifted in and out of consciousness she noted idly that the fingers were doing more exploring than massaging now. Her body began to warm under those hands, and she came belatedly to the realization that the oil that had been used on her was waking the nerves in her skin with a warm pulse.

  Her thighs had been parted without her noticing, and the thumb that stroked across the seam of her buttocks made her rise in surprise. The thumb began to rub gently at the rosebud of her anus and she squeaked in shock as it slipped inside.

  Her owner’s voice murmured gently to her as what was obviously his thumb began to move within her. Her body seemed to welcome the invasion with a wave of heat, but her mind was spinning in surprise. The oil that coated her worked its way into her, carried by that thumb. She shook as the pulsing heat made her raise her ass toward the invading digit.

  It left her with a soft withdrawal, and the hand patted her straining buttock. Hands around her waist drew her to her knees on the massage table and the head of his cock pushed past her slick petals and into her in one determined thrust.

  The belly chain that they had placed on her in the Grand Arena was still in place, and he used it to hold her and draw her into the sharp slap of his thighs against her. Ceres shook and gasped with every stroke, trying to meet his thrusts, but having to give into his relentless rhythm.

  She dropped to her elbows and leaned to one side to move her own hand to her clit. A few circular strokes and she came, bucking and shivering in release.

  She dropped her head onto her bent arms and simply took the rest of the pounding that he was giving her. His fingers dug into her hips as he grunted and sighed as his own release slammed into him.

  After a long moment with their bodies fused intimately he withdrew and gathered her into his arms.

  She snuggled into him, the heat from his body a warm blanket around her. He walked with her back to the bed and they snuggled between clean and crisp sheets. She sighed happily and was relaxed in his embrace when she felt a touch at the back of her head, and the mask released.

  Chapter Six

  The mask slowly fell from her face and she blinked and squinted in the dim light of the room. A damp cloth was drawn across her face and she felt him turn her to face him.

  “Hello, Raanan.” Her red eyes met with his clear golden gaze and she saw surprise move across his features.

  His full lips twisted into a rueful smile, “How long have you known? The whole time?”

  She eagerly devoured his features with her gaze. He was perfect. He always had been. A golden mane of hair framed skin that was a darker shade of metallic gold. His eyes were the clear gold of the high-flying raptors of his mountain home. His mother’s Azon blood was in evidence.

  It was his alien heritage that had kept them out of the same social circles, for the most part. There had still been moments and festivals where they had been allowed to mingle. He had always kept to the formal distances required by their social status, but she had felt something in her blood call to him.

  “No, I only knew during our…umm.” She ducked her head and studied the musculature of his chest with concentration. His fingers gently tilted her jaw up until she met his gaze again.

  “When you took me that first time. It was the bite that gave you away. That and your voice. It started a memory in the skimmer.”

  “Are you displeased?” His lips traced hers and her eyelids fluttered closed as her breath mingled with his.

  “No!” She was self conscious again. “I mean, you bought me, you own me.” A phrase she had never imagined saying tumbled from her lips. “I am yours.”

  He blinked in surprise. No answering phrase tumbled from his lips and she closed her eyes in mortification. Light kisses skated across her lids and she couldn’t stop the tear that formed at the tenderness.

  “Now is not the time Ceres. You are still in the grip of your urges, and once you are free, then we will speak of this again.”

  “Will we? There is no reason to. You own me. I can expect nothing from you except a breeding partner under the law.” More tears formed and flowed down her face. She was in the arms of her choice of a mate, and she had no right to him. He could take another to wife, and only visit her when she was in season. For that matter. He may have a mate right now.

  “Are you married?”

  “No. There was a female I had my eye on, but it didn’t work out.” His tongue flicked out and took her tears from her flesh. With a heavy sigh he rolled her to her back and slid home within her.

  Her eyes opened wide at the feel of him and the sight of him with his skin drawn taught over his cheekbones with lust made her feel both protected and prey. His fingers tangled with hers and pulled her hands up beside her head.

  Slowly, he began to thrust into her and withdraw almost completely, then thrust in again. The tide of his body beat against hers with a slow pounding. Watching him moving above her was shaking her to the core. Sex was much more intimate when you met your lover’s gaze.

  She felt a tingle and a touch on her mind. “You’re…?” His lips sealed any details or accusations she might have made as his mind fed his pleasure right into hers. He threw his head back and groaned as her pleasure spilled back into his mind.

  With the speed of a striking viper his head snapped forward and bit hard into her neck again, his pleasure as the blood spilled into him mixed with the heat of his cock in her voluptuous grip. His orgasm was intensified by hers as his pleasure and the pain once again blended to send her sensitized body into over drive.

  He collapsed against her, his body coated in sweat and musk, his and hers. His chest was heaving li
ke a bellows. For the first time she realized how hard going into heat had to be on the males. They had to be able to perform any time that their breeding partner craved it, for days on end. The stamina that they needed was incredible.

  She brought her hands up and stroked his hair, loving the feel of the silky cool locks between her fingers. It was the only part of him that was cool, the rest was all muscle and heat.

  “How long have we been here?” She was counting off the time in her mind, but the frenzied coupling was all that rang in her mind.

  “Two and a half days.”

  She had lost an entire day. “Why did you remove the mask? I thought is was tradition to keep the woman in it until the heat was over.”

  “I wanted to see your eyes.” He raised his head and kissed her again. A sweet tangling of tongues and lips that made her sigh in happiness. Her fingers tightened to keep pressure on his mouth as she pushed up with her hips. He obligingly rolled over, and she found herself riding him.

  “Is that all you wanted to see?” She flexed around him and arched her back, displaying her swollen breasts and erect nipples. His hands took the invitation and his hips rose under her, pushing him in deep.

  She rose and fell, echoing the slow torture that he had put her through ending each plunge onto him with a swivel of her hips that arched his back and once again she felt the touch on her mind.

  His hands shifted from her breasts to her hips and he held her still as he worked against her. Her laugh of triumph made his eyes narrow, and she could feel his outrage at her teasing. She had set out to make him lose control enough to take charge of their coupling, and he was about to.

  He gripped her hips and rolled so that she was now on her back and he pounded into her with barely restrained savagery. His fingers formed claws and drew furrows across the sensitive flesh of her breasts, her body rioted from the sensations as it hovered between the pain/pleasure barrier, and it couldn’t climax.

  She whimpered for more as he slowed and thrust shallowly, bringing her body under his complete control as she pulled at his shoulders in futility.

  Now she felt his triumph as he began to shake with the effort to control himself. He had proved his point. Her body was under his control, not the other way around.

  One of his thumbs stroked across her clit and she shook at the extra layer of sensation. It was enough to make tears come to her eyes. “Please. I need…”

  She fed all of the sensations and her dangling on the precipice to him. The flames that engulfed her body, the beat of her walls around him and the emotion that she couldn’t yet put words to. He felt them all.

  His release came upon him in that wave of communication. Her body responded once again, and she screamed as the pent up tension unravelled in a burst of pleasure.

  She slept, the orgy of sensuality had exhausted a body not used to carnal activity.

  When she woke hours later. It was over.

  Chapter Seven

  It was late afternoon. She could tell by the angle of the light that crept through the windows. Her head turned and she examined the surroundings that she had been too fevered to notice.

  The bed that she was on was typical for a Nyal master bedroom, over ten feet square. It made for easier romping about when in the grip of the mating fever.

  Two large windows flanked it on the wall next to the headboard, as she bent forward to look, they were doorways onto a balcony. The far wall was covered by bookshelves with a small writing desk in the center. The facility chamber door was next to the door that she had to imagine led to the ante room.

  The sight of the wreckage that they had made of the bed almost caused her to blush. She stood on unsteady legs and began hobbling with her thighs still shrieking in protest. Twenty feet across the room to the facility chamber almost did her in.

  She used the facilities, then wandered gratefully into the shower. The warm water calmed her abraded skin, both on her breasts and between her thighs.

  He had been rough, but thorough, and her body had needed everything he had to give.

  She soaped and rinsed her hair, wincing at the thought of untangling the riot of strands that had been knotted by the writhing on the sheets.

  When her hands had begun to wrinkle from the water, she reluctantly stepped from the cubical. A towel was extended to her by a Nyal female and she quickly wrapped it around herself.

  “I am Amani. The master of the house has asked that I care for you.” She didn’t look to happy about it.

  “I will not require much attending. I have been taking care of myself for a while now.” Being under the scrutiny of attendants was her least favourite thing. It always had been.

  “There is a gown for you in the other room. I thought that you would still be asleep after the last few days’ activities.” The censure in her tone was unmistakable. Apparently the house was not sound proofed.

  “Nope. I am awake and full of energy. Sorry to disappoint you.” She towelled herself dry roughly and turned to her hair. “Is there a brush available? I need to unknot this mess.”

  Amani looked confused, but proffered a brush. Most purchased breeders were not this forthright. Apparently she had been expecting a shy woman from the lower classes.

  It took Ceres long minutes to get halfway up the mass on her right side, and a gentle tugging on her left distracted her. “I can do this myself.”

  “Yes, but it will go more swiftly with two.” Her hands made short work of the tangles, and she added, “I dress my daughter’s hair, and she tends to have twigs in it from her tree climbing. At least yours is clean.”

  Ceres smiled and continued to work on her unruly ivory locks. When they were finally untangled and flowing down her back she sighed in relief. “Alright, now where was that dress?”

  The gown was Azon in style, formal and flowing at the same time. It had a high collar, but left her collar bone exposed as well as a hint of cleavage. Elaborate trim covered every seam and it fell straight to the floor in a clean line.

  Shoes were also there, mimicking the trim on her gown. She slid her feet in and sighed with the feel of being completely covered. There was a certain amount of security that came with being clothed. As fun as it was to romp naked with Raanan, meeting him again while clothed would put her on more even footing.

  “Am I to stay here or do I have the run of the house?”

  “You have the run of the house. There is an atrium on the main floor where the master has his dinner, which will be served within the hour. You might find him there.”

  “My heat is over. Why would I want to find him?” Laughter was in her tone and she swept out of the bedroom and into the antechamber, looked at the couches and desks, then continued on into the main hall.

  “Wow.” The home she was in rivalled her father’s winter palace.

  Amani followed her out of the room, “Yes, master Adonai had this built six years ago.”

  Her footsteps were muffled by the thick carpet beneath her, “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why did he build this home six years ago? Did he have a mate?”

  “No, he always just said that he had someone in mind.” She was hovering behind Ceres as she walked and caressed the woodwork with delicate motions.

  The large staircase lead down into the main foyer she looked around and followed a servant who was carrying a carafe of wine. She kept at least fifteen feet behind the woman, but she was still subjected to nervous glances as she kept pace.

  The hall that they moved through was a servant’s corridor. When it opened into the atrium she was unsurprised. The servant immediately scurried forward and as she put the wine on the table in front of Raanan, she whispered frantically in his ear.

  He turned and surveyed Ceres in all her fully-clothed glory and approval with a hint of possession flared in his eyes. He stood as she approached.

  She moved forward and took the chair that he held out for her. “Thank you.”

  His eyes crinkled in amusement
at her formality. “You are welcome. You look just as lovely in clothing as without it. Well, almost.”

  Her shy behaviour was a direct response to her having spent the last few days writhing in his arms. “Thank you. I wasn’t sure that I put the dress on correctly.”

  “You did well. Didn’t Amani help you?”

  “I am not very fond of being cared for by servants.”

  He poured her a glass of wine and watered it down. “Yes, your father did mention that you had outwitted his guard and your caretakers when you were younger.”

  She nearly sprayed the wine that she had been sipping across the table. “When did you talk to my father about me?”

  “When he was trying to talk me out of offering for you, and again after you ran from me.” He took his own goblet to his lips and she watched a drop of wine cling to his lips, and had to fight the urge to lean forward to lick it off.

  She shook her head to clear it. “I wasn’t running from you Raanan. I was running from the faceless man that my father was trying to match me to. He refused to tell me who he had chosen for me, and I panicked. I ran.”

  He propped his chin up on his fist and she felt his mind delicately touching hers. No longer bound by the heat of lust, she realized what he was doing fully. “You are an empath. The Azon blood that your mother gave you had that talent in it.”

  “Yes. Does it disgust you? I know that many Nyal are appalled by psi abilities.”

  “My skin isn’t pure Nyal either, Raanan.” She lifted her watered wine. “To the shame in my family tree!” She laughed outright at his appalled look.

  “I have spent over a year in the stars Raanan, alien races are not so alien to me anymore.” Her mind welcomed the light touch and she sat quietly letting him rifle through her emotions.

  “You really didn’t know whom your father had chosen. He told me that you knew, and that it was why you ran.”

  “WHAT?!” Her shriek rent the air and a few servants appeared in doorways, he waved them off.