by Claire Kent
As she remembered the horrifying experience, a shuddering sob escaped her throat. “It was terrible.”
Cain made a rough sound—as if he were wordlessly objecting to her crying.
She shook helplessly for a minute. Not really weeping but finally releasing the emotional tension.
When she got herself under control again, she rasped, “I hate this place.”
Cain tightened his arms around her again and said against her hair, “I know.”
They lay in silence for a long time, and Riana had no desire to leave the haven that his embrace provided her.
Eventually, she noticed a faint smear of blood on the bedding, and it made her remember something else. Still hugging his forearm to her chest, she asked softly, “Are you all right?”
He tensed up slightly behind her. “What do you mean?”
It was a risk. This morning she never would have taken it. But she did now. She explained, “You killed a man just now.”
The pause was long and tense. But Cain finally answered in a thick voice, “I know. I don’t regret it.”
“Me either,” she admitted, although it was strangely hard for her to say. “But still. I thought maybe it might be…hard.”
She’d never killed anyone so she didn’t know how it would feel. For all she knew, Cain might have killed dozens of men. He might be a serial killer.
But she didn’t really think so. And she couldn’t help but wonder how he felt about having beaten a man to death the way he had.
He didn’t reply for a really long time. Just kept holding her and breathing into her hair. He was silent for so long she assumed he wasn’t going to respond, and she didn’t blame him at all.
But then finally he murmured, so low she could barely hear it, “I hate this place too.”
* * *
The next day, when Cain was gone for the morning food rush, the Player from the opposite cell stopped by in front of the bars. He’d been walking around and must have noticed she was alone. Evidently, Cain’s warning to stay away hadn’t sunk in.
“Do you need anything?” he asked, looking almost serious for once. He was classically handsome, but he didn’t have a young man’s prettiness. He must be in his thirties, and there was a slight roughness to his appearance that testified to hard experience and made him even more attractive.
“I have someone to give me what I need,” she said coolly, wanting to make sure not to give him any encouragement. He was definitely different from most of the prisoners—he’d somehow managed to hold onto his civilization—but she was Cain’s woman, and she wanted there to be no mistake about that.
“Yeah. I’ve noticed that. After yesterday, I mean. Are you okay?”
He must have either heard or seen what happened with Asp.
She nodded. “Yeah. I had protection.” Then she added because he looked genuinely concerned, “He got there in time.”
The man’s face relaxed.
He’d only been here a short time. She wondered if he’d eventually turn hard and ruthless and primitive like most of the other prisoners here.
“What is he making there?” the man asked, nodding toward Cain’s device.
Riana didn’t answer that question.
“If he’s got some sort of escape plan, let me know. I could definitely help.”
The words should have been presumptuous, since he was a stranger to her, but she actually believed him. He wasn’t putting on that persuasive act like he had before. It felt like he was telling her the truth.
And she wondered if he could. There was something about this man that felt like lurking power, danger—although not directed at her.
“Who are you?” she blurted out.
He laughed, a warm, genuine sound rarely heard in the prison. “My name is Hall.”
“And what do you do?”
“I’m a freelancer.”
“What kind of freelancing?”
“A variety of jobs that pay well.”
That felt about right, for the way she’d sized him up. “What jobs?”
“Whatever. I’m good at a lot. It’s the payment I care about.”
“What did you do to end up here?”
He opened his mouth to answer, but he never did. Cain had appeared behind him and reached out to shove him away from the bars.
Hall must have reacted instinctively. He swung his arms up into a fighter’s pose, and then he caught Cain’s fist before it slammed into his face.
There was no way Hall was strong enough to resist the strength of Cain’s blow, but for some reason Cain’s arm stopped before it reached its target.
Cain stared, looking blank for a minute.
Hall was stepping back with a smile. “I didn’t mean to intrude,” he said, calling on what must be his natural instinct for self-preservation.
Then Cain suddenly acted. So quickly Riana could barely keep up. One minute, the two men were several feet apart, and then suddenly Cain had grabbed Hall and thrown him up against the bars of the cell, holding him in place with his forearm against Hall’s throat.
“What did you just do?” Cain gritted out through clenched teeth.
Riana jumped out of the bed. “He wasn’t doing anything,” she said hurriedly. “He was just talking. He wasn’t offensive.”
She didn’t mind Cain clearing the path for them with force, but Hall hadn’t done anything to deserve this kind of violence.
Cain’s eyes never left Hall’s face. “What did you do to me just now?”
Riana realized he was asking something different, and her heart started to race even more.
“Nothing,” Hall said, not resisting the force in any way. “I was just protecting myself. Sorry if I got in the way.”
Riana somehow knew the man wasn’t a coward. He was smart. He only picked the fights he knew he could win, and he must not be sure he could win out against Cain.
“Tell me what you did to me, or I’ll crush your windpipe.”
Something loosened in Hall’s body, and he said hoarsely, “I’m a Reader.”
Riana made a little noise of surprise, and even Cain straightened up.
The Coalition had rounded up all the Readers about a decade ago. They’d forced them all to work for the government and were now controlling their reproduction, so Readers were supposed to have vanished from the general population.
“You weren’t just Reading me a minute ago,” Cain muttered, his arm still at the other man’s throat. “I felt you do something.”
“My gift takes a slightly different form. I can read other people’s feelings when I touch them. What I can pick up is a lot vaguer than other Readers, but I can turn it around too. I can use what I sense, turn it around, and send it back. That’s what I did to you.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Cain asked, looking predatory, suspicious.
Hall gave a quirk of a smile. “Because you asked?”
“He wasn’t doing any harm,” Riana said quietly. Hall seemed like a real person to her now—and she thought he would to Cain too. If Cain killed him, it would just be wrong, and she didn’t want Cain to have to live with that. “He was just defending himself.”
Cain hesitated, obviously torn. Then he finally let Hall go. Hall shook himself off and straightened up, somehow maintaining the look of amused superiority.
“Stay away from both of us,” Cain growled.
Hall arched his eyebrows at Riana, in some sort of unspoken communication. “Got it.” Then he turned around and left.
Cain was tense and silent when he entered the cell and locked it behind him.
He was bristling, and she knew he was troubled by what had just happened with Hall.
“He really wasn’t being offensive,” she said, trying to break the tension. Hall made more sense to her now. She could see how he’d managed to carve out a place for himself here, and she could understand why he was so persuasive.
“So now you’re defending him?” Cain’s words cut like a knife.
Cain narrowed his eyes and glared at her, not answering.
She was so annoyed she wanted to shake him. “What the hell is your problem? Do you think I’m considering moving out of your cell and into his?”
She asked the final question mostly to get a reaction, to snap him out of his bristling. Not because she thought it was true.
But she saw a flicker of something in his eyes and suddenly realized it was. He thought she liked Hall—better than him. He thought she might be wondering if he was a better choice for a mate.
“Oh, my God, Cain,” she groaned, dropping down to sit on the edge of the bed. “How could you possibly think that?”
He didn’t answer. Just stood over her, staring down, something both angry and hesitant on his face.
“I chose you. I live with you, fuck you, depend on you completely. Damn it, I even smell like you. How could you possibly think I’d change my mind and choose someone else?”
He still didn’t answer. Not with words. But something seemed to have cracked inside him, because he was suddenly on top of her, pushing her down so she was lying on her back.
He kissed her hard, possessive, and her whole body and soul answered his claim. She arched up into him, clawing at the back of his neck,
Soon, he’d pulled off her pants and pulled out his cock, and he was entering her with rough thrusts.
She was totally overwhelmed with his strength, his power, his possession. Even without much foreplay, she was aching with arousal, her hips eagerly grinding against his thrusts.
She could barely breathe around the depth of the kiss, but he didn’t break it until they’d worked up a rough, rhythmic motion. Then finally he tore his mouth away and said thickly, “Tell me you’re mine.”
“I’m yours,” she gasped, meaning it—far more than in body. “Just yours.”
She came on the last word, pleasure rippling through her, and Cain stifled an exclamation of satisfaction as he let himself go too.
He fell down on top of her afterwards, gathering her into his arms.
And she loved it—all of how he felt and looked and sounded and smelled as he held her.
She understood why he’d needed to assure himself that she was his woman, but she couldn’t help but wish the situation was mutual.
That he was hers—fully, for real—too.
* * *
That evening after mealtime Cain worked on his device again. He wasn’t just tinkering now. He seemed driven, concentrating so hard on his work that he was barely conscious of her presence.
She wondered if he was close to finishing it.
She wondered what it was going to do.
She wondered if it would be what he wanted it to be—an escape out of this misery.
When he finally put down his tool and covered the device with the sheet again, his expression looked blank and unfocused.
She sat up in bed and hugged her arms to her chest. “Cain,” she began, her voice weak and shaky, “When you get out of here, when you escape, please don’t leave me behind.”
Four
Time passed strangely in the Hold.
Each day seemed to drag on forever, but the string of days—one after the other, each exactly alike—would disappear in the blink of an eye.
Riana sometimes had trouble keeping track of how long she’d been here. It felt like forever since she’d arrived. Like she’d known Cain—been fucking him—all her life.
But each morning when she woke up, she tried to tick off the days on her mental calendar. Today she thought she’d been in prison for a little over two months.
Cain had been here a lot longer.
This morning, as soon as the lights came on, he got up as usual and headed for the bathroom. But instead of washing up and starting his exercise routine, he crawled back into bed with her when he came out of the bathroom nook.
She rolled over on her side to peer at him. “You feeling all right?”
He had an odd look on his face, but he didn’t look sick or upset. “Yeah.”
“Horny?”
Occasionally, he jumped her as soon as they woke up, but he usually did so before the lights came back on.
Cain gave her a half-smile and made a throaty humming noise that might have been an affirmation.
But he didn’t roll over on top of her, and he didn’t reach over to pull her close. He just lay on his back, one arm crossed beneath his head, and stared at the ceiling.
Genuinely confused by this change in his normal routine, she propped herself up on one elbow and stroked his chest with the other. His torso was solidly muscular, with rippling planes, coarse dark hair, and tight skin. “Cain? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” He turned his head slightly so he could gaze up at her, his eyes skimming appreciatively over her warm face and messy hair. Then they shifted down to her breasts, which were bare and exposed because she was holding herself up and the sheet had slipped down to her waist. She’d gone to sleep naked last night, since she hadn’t felt like putting her dirty clothes back on after she and Cain had fucked.
“You’re acting weird,” she told him, playing idly with one his nipples.
He gave a soft grunt. “I’m not sure, but I think today might be my birthday.”
“Really?” She grinned down at him—although it was a silly thing to be excited about, given their circumstances. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-six today. If I’ve kept track of the days right since I got here.”
She chuckled and stroked her hand up his chest to his neck. And then she caressed the stubbly skin of his jaw—enjoying the rough texture of it. “Getting kind of old, aren’t you?”
He just smiled at her teasing. A real smile. The one she hardly ever saw.
Pleased with her success, she leaned down to press a soft kiss just next to his mouth. “Happy birthday,” she murmured huskily. “Shall I give you a present?”
Cain gently pushed the hair back from her face as she mouthed a trail along his jaw. “What did you have in mind?”
She just made a purring sound and adjusted her body over him so she could kiss a line down his throat to his chest. She spent some time on his chest—flicking his nipples with her tongue and nibbling on a few spots she knew were sensitive.
His breathing picked up and occasionally he would let out a textured sigh—sounds of pleasure that thrilled her and caused her pussy to clench in excitement.
Eventually, she scooted down his body even more until she was kissing his tight belly. She loved his abdomen and stroked it tenderly as she kissed slowly down toward his groin.
Soon her lips once again found coarse dark hair. And then she reached his cock, which was already halfway erect.
The covers had fallen off her completely and bunched up around her feet, so she posed her naked body as attractively as she could when she leaned down to lick a line along his cock.
He sucked in a sharp breath as she licked him, and his erection twitched visibly. She teased him for a few minutes—licking along the veins, fondling his balls, twirling her tongue around the head—until he was fully erect and the muscles of his thighs were tightly clenched.
Then she took his cock in her mouth and hollowed out her cheeks, sucking as well as she could.
Cain groaned softly and jerked his pelvis, making a little thrust up into her mouth.
Her pussy was wet now and starting to pulse. Riana closed one hand around the base of his cock and began a pattern of sucking and squeezing. She knew what Cain liked, so it wasn’t hard to find the rhythm that made his body tighten and caused him to fist his hands in the bedding.
She shifted her eyes up to his face and saw his rigidly controlled expression. His eyes were hungry and possessive, though, as he lifted his head to watch her suck him.
He was doing his best to restrain his need to thrust, but occasionally
his hips would give an erratic jerk. Riana didn’t mind. She loved every sign that she was pleasing him. And so she worked his firm, warm flesh with her mouth as she breathed through her nose and bobbed her head.
When she reached down below her head to gently squeeze his balls, Cain gave a barely controlled thrust into her mouth. She slid her mouth back up his cock automatically, trying to avoid choking on his erection.
“Sorry,” he gritted out, his skin glistening with perspiration as the muscles of his arms and belly rippled from holding himself rigidly in check.
She smiled around him and hummed an encouraging response. Then she held onto him firmly with one hand and took more of it in her mouth.
When she’d established her rhythm once more, she began to fondle his balls again. Her pussy was so wet now that she could feel the moisture leaking out, and she only got wetter as she saw how viscerally he responded to her ministrations.
She was completely focused on Cain, and so she barely registered the commentary that began from outside the bars of their cell. Vulgar comments, as usual, about her body, her position, and what she was doing to Cain.
She ignored them. By now, onlookers rarely fazed her, and what was more important was pleasing Cain.
But she sensed something change about his mood. And when she shifted her eyes up, she saw he was snarling slightly.
Afraid he was getting distracted and wouldn’t enjoy the birthday blow job, she moved her free hand from his balls so she could rub little circles against the sensitive spot just behind his sac.
His whole body jerked, and he released a thick grunt.
She smiled again around his cock at her success.
Then she gasped in surprise when Cain leaned up, stretching his arms down on either side of her body. It took her several seconds to realize what he was doing.
He was pulling the covers back up over her, shielding her body from any oglers.
Riana fell out of rhythm for a minute, so surprised was she by his action. He’d never done anything like that before. He’d always ignored other prisoners who’d lurked at the bars—except for the first night when he’d told them to leave. She knew it was part of the power play. Acting like they bothered him—letting them bother him—only gave them power over him.