Shifter’s Station 3: Loving Your Enemy Read online

  “You’ve got secrets I can sell.”

  Kirlos’s cock wanted to tell Devlin everything the man wanted to hear and then beg the captain for a long merciless fucking as a reward. But that part of him never had any sense. No matter how angry he was at the government who’d abandoned him, telling Cerian secrets could bring harm to the few friends he had on Ceria. “I suppose you’re going to torture me if I don’t talk?”

  Devlin’s lips curled up into a wicked smile. He made a show of extracting his knife again and examining the blade. Then he turned it on. The low hum of the vibroblade sounded louder than it should have. Kirlos’s heart pounded. His mind couldn’t decide whether to panic or to dissolve into a puddle of lust.

  Devlin slipped the single-edged blade under the bottom edge of the tight shirt Kirlos had worn under his combat uniform. The worn fabric split easily as Devlin drew the knife upward. Kirlos tensed, expecting to feel the prick of the knife’s tip, but Devlin never touched him with it.

  When the shirt was open down the front, Devlin slipped the knife under the cuff at Kirlos’s wrist. Kirlos froze. He felt the cold edge of the blade vibrating against his wrist. He forced himself to look Devlin in the eye and pretend he wasn’t afraid.

  Devlin growled and sliced his sleeve open with dizzying speed. Kirlos’s head swam. He swayed slightly in his bonds. His disobedient cock stirred to life despite his attempt to ignore the hot need rushing through his body. Gods, if he could be sure Devlin wasn’t going to hurt him, this could be one of the hottest afternoons of his life.

  Devlin finished removing his shirt, and it fell to the ground. Kirlos blew out a long breath and looked Devlin in the eye. He swallowed hard against the fear Devlin inspired and forced himself to curl his lips into a sultry smile, one that typically got him exactly what he wanted from his lovers.

  Devlin scowled. “Think you’re going to enjoy this, do you?”

  “You are, so why shouldn’t I?”

  “I told you to stay out of my head.”

  Kirlos’s grin widened as he looked pointedly at the erection threatening to split the seams of Devlin’s leather pants. “I don’t have to be in your head to see your reaction.”

  Devlin wrapped Kirlos’s hair around his free hand and jerked his head to the side. He laid the blade against Kirlos’s neck. “This is no game. I could kill you right now and your government wouldn’t say a word.”

  Kirlos struggled to think through the haze of fear and lust in his mind. Devlin’s shields were some of the strongest he’d encountered, but the captain’s intense emotions poured through. His lust was nearly as strong as his anger. Kirlos had no doubt the captain would be desperate to fuck him by the time this little show was over. Kirlos rubbed his cheek against the hand that held his hair and looked up at the captain. “Why kill me when you’d rather fuck me?”

  Devlin pulled the knife away with a savage growl. “I want to make you suffer.”

  Kirlos took a deep breath now that he could get air in his lungs without severing his throat, but his breath caught as Devlin bent and slipped the knife under the edge of Kirlos’s combat pants. Cold fear erased all his plans for seduction. The knife was wickedly sharp, but could it slice the thick fabric of his pants the way it had his shirt?

  Devlin pulled upward, rising slowly, and Kirlos’s pants split like they were made of air. Very impressive. If he got out of this alive, Kirlos wanted one of those damned knives. When the cool metal touched his hipbone, Kirlos tensed, but Devlin didn’t stop until he’d sliced through the waistband of Kirlos’s pants.

  When the fabric dropped away, Devlin ran the flat of the knife over Kirlos’s naked flesh, and pressed the tip against the hard muscle of his thigh. Kirlos steeled himself for pain.

  Devlin moved his hand a fraction of an inch.

  Kirlos felt a sting.

  Devlin’s chest rose and fell rapidly. His eyes were wide, hungry. Kirlos could feel the lust wafting off of him. He didn’t dare probe Devlin’s mind while the man had a knife that close to his cock, but the captain smelled strongly of lust.

  Devlin pulled back without drawing blood, and Kirlos breathed again.

  The captain knelt and slipped the knife under the other side of Kirlos’s pants. Devlin sliced so fast, Kirlos had no time to be afraid. Then the Cerian’s pants fell to the floor.

  Devlin kicked them out of the way and sheathed the knife. Then he opened a drawer and pulled out something small that Kirlos couldn’t see followed by a vicious single-tailed whip. The captain let the whip unfurl slowly before snapping it against the ground.

  Kirlos jerked involuntarily. Gods, he loved the burning crack of a whip across his skin. It had been ages since he’d had a lover skilled enough to wield one as brutal as the one Devlin held. But he’d never had such a whipping with no warm-up. Cold fear threatened to squelch the lust that heated his body.

  Devlin gave him a cold smile and snapped the whip once more for effect. “It won’t take many lashes to tear your back open. Would you like to start talking now?”

  Kirlos probed at Devlin’s shields and slipped in easily. The captain was too distracted by his plans for Kirlos’s torture to notice. The heat of Devlin’s lust burned along their mental link. Kirlos smiled. “This isn’t about information anymore, is it?”

  Devlin snarled.

  “This is about your pleasure.”

  Devlin moved so fast Kirlos didn’t see the blow coming before searing pain sliced across the front of his thigh. He nearly bit through his bottom lip in his attempt to hold his scream inside. Their mental link broke as Devlin’s shields solidified, forcing him out. “Stay the fuck out of my head.”

  “Why? You’re not going to kill me. You want me too much.”

  His other thigh exploded in pain as Devlin cracked the whip again. The tip of the whip came terrifyingly close to his cock. Dizziness hit as the blood drained from Kirlos’s brain. His gut clenched in fear.

  “I could find others with profitable secrets if killing you becomes more expedient. Once I’m done with you, your life will mean nothing to me.”

  “Except that I’ll still be a good fuck no matter how much information I divulge.” Kirlos had a crazy need to laugh, probably hysteria brought on by the precariousness of his position. Devlin’s face was red. His eyes nearly glowed with the force of his anger, but his cock was as hard as ever. It would make a damn fine weapon for torturing Kirlos’s ass.

  “Maybe I’ll give you to my security team. Most of them haven’t had a good fuck in the long months we’ve been fighting this pointless war your people started. I bet their enthusiasm would kill a pretty boy like you in a very short time.”

  Kirlos took a shaky breath. He’d seen some of Devlin’s men. They were built as solidly as the captain and several of them didn’t seem completely human. He’d thought of them as beasts barely held in control by Devlin’s directives.

  Devlin walked slowly around the edge of the room until he stood directly behind Kirlos. Kirlos took a deep breath, trying to prepare himself for the next lash. Instead, Devlin moved in close and wrapped his arms around Kirlos’s body. Cold metal brushed his chest a second before Devlin closed a pair of tightly sprung alligator clips around his nipples.

  Kirlos couldn’t stop his body from bucking against his restraints, trying fruitlessly to escape the biting pain. He managed to muffle the scream that rose from his chest, but a strangled cry still escaped.

  Devlin stepped back and cracked the whip twice in rapid succession. A second elapsed before Kirlos registered the fierce pain on his back. It seemed to cut right through his body and intensify the ache in his nipples.

  “Got anything to say?” Devlin’s words sounded far away as Kirlos’s suppressed screams echoed in his head. He sagged in his bonds panting, letting himself float away from his torment.

  “I know what it’s like to be fucked over by your own government. I’d never suffer like this for those bastards. Is it really worth this pain to keep their secrets?”

&n
bsp; Kirlos bit his lip to keep confessions from spilling out.

  Two more strokes, across his buttocks this time. Another question. But he couldn’t make sense of Devlin’s words. He gathered the strength for another mental probe. The captain’s lust slammed into Kirlos’s mind, so fierce it felt like another lash from the whip.

  “Get out, you son of a bitch.” Two more cutting strokes landed on the back of his thighs.

  He screamed this time, no longer able to keep his pain inside. But as the sound escaped him, his cock hardened.

  “More,” he gasped as pain merged with pleasure. He’d meant to taunt Devlin, to use him. Arrogant, dominating men always made him hot, but after touching Devlin’s mind, what had been a game of seduction aimed at freeing himself now changed. The feel of the captain’s cruelty and vulnerability merged into a devastating package and wreaked havoc on Kirlos’s mind and his heart. Never had a man he’d just met taken him so deep that he could bear pain this intense and find it erotic.

  Chapter 2

  Marc cracked the whip over and over, viciously attacking Adesta’s back. He lost count before he stopped. The realization that he was out of control scared him. He stepped back and fought to slow his breath and his heart. His wolf clawed at his insides, begging to be unleashed.

  Adesta hung limp in his bonds, but his screams still echoed in the room. His back, ass, and thighs blazed with welts, like a demented work of art.

  The Cerian groaned. “Gods, you’re good at this.”

  “Shut up.” Adesta’s words had shot straight to Marc’s cock. How had this gone so wrong? He should have turned Adesta over to someone else the moment he realized the man could get to him -- not that anyone else could keep the Cerian from manipulating his or her mind.

  Adesta gave a dry laugh. “You’re so hard your cock is begging for release.”

  Devlin laid another stroke on the reddest part of the Cerian’s ass. “Get the fuck out of my mind.”

  Adesta denied him the satisfaction of another scream. “I’m… not… in your mind.”

  Marc realized he didn’t feel the tickling sensation of Adesta’s probe. The man was reading him that well with no connection. He was playing him, and Marc was falling for it. Marc realized he wasn’t even asking for info anymore. He wanted nothing more than to watch the Cerian writhe.

  Fuck! He’d misread Adesta. The perverse bastard had shot his plan to hell. He’d have been more likely to get information out of Adesta by dangling the whip in front of him and promising not to use it until the man talked. He’d thought the Cerian’s bravado had been a cover for fear when in fact the man was hiding his own intense excitement. Marc could see why the son of a bitch’s government didn’t want him back. The taunting little minx had him thoroughly distracted and hotter than he’d been for anyone in a very long time. His wolf cried out to sink his fangs deep in Adesta’s neck and fuck him while he screamed.

  Devlin’s mind scrambled for a way out of this dilemma as he laid another searing stroke across Adesta’s back. The Cerian jerked in his bonds and emitted another scream. Blood trickled down his back. The smell of blood made the predator in Devlin salivate. He wanted to lick the droplets from the Cerian’s back. Shuddering at the thought, he took another step away from the man.

  He had to get himself, human and wolf, under control. The Cerian’s ribs expanded and contracted with shallow, rapid breaths. He’d made no attempt at reading Marc’s mind for a while now. Marc doubted Adesta could take much more without passing out.

  After what Terra Gov had done to him, Marc had no stomach for serious torture, despite what he let others think. He couldn’t allow himself to do irrevocable damage to this man, no matter how much Marc’s cock throbbed with need and his wolf howled to get free and attack. He would not risk becoming the monster he’d feared from the day he woke up in a Terra Gov lab and realized he’d been genetically altered.

  He set aside the whip. He wouldn’t be exacting any more pain today, but what about pleasure? The Cerian had been begging for a fuck every time he stuck his ass out to take another stroke of the whip. And Marc wasn’t sure his cock had ever been this hard. He didn’t have the strength to walk away.

  Marc exhaled slowly and unbuttoned his pants. He shoved them over his hips and growled when he remembered that he had to take his boots off first. He nearly ripped the leather apart before he realized he’d grown claws. Gods of Earth, this bastard wasn’t going to make him lose his hard-won control. Cerian secrets weren’t worth that price.

  Adesta turned his head and caught Marc’s eye as Marc divested himself of his shirt, leaving himself naked. Not breaking eye contact with Adesta, he reached for a bottle of lube. He squirted some in his hand and stroked his cock, slowly, greasing the full length. “I won’t have you accuse me of rape later. If you don’t want me to fuck you, say so now.”

  Adesta’s eyes widened. “Fires of hell! I need a fuck.”

  That was all Marc needed to hear. He unhooked Adesta’s wrists and ankles as quickly as he could. When he removed the nipple clamps, Adesta gasped. Marc couldn’t resist pinching the Cerian’s nipples after he’d put the clamps aside. He was rewarded with a shudder.

  He turned Adesta to face the entrance to his bedroom. “Go in, kneel on the floor, and lean against the bed.”

  Adesta obeyed and Marc followed him. The captain knelt behind Adesta and dug his fingers into Adesta’s ass cheeks, pulling them apart. Adesta pushed his ass back against Marc’s cock. Marc slipped one lubed finger inside Adesta. The Cerian arched his back, opening himself and begging for more.

  Marc gripped his cock in one hand and guided it to Adesta’s entrance. Marc thrust hard and Adesta groaned. One more shove and Marc was seated inside the Cerian. He locked the fingers of one hand around Adesta’s hipbone and gripped the man’s cock with the other hand. He pulled out slowly and drove himself back in, but then he froze. The Cerian’s cock had begun to vibrate in his hand and it was coated in a thick sticky liquid, but he knew the man hadn’t come yet. “What the fuck?”

  Adesta twisted, trying to work himself against Marc’s cock. “Cerians have… natural lube… and vibration… part of our… charm.”

  Marc tightened his grip on Adesta’s cock and the vibrations grew stronger. He slid his hand up and down the man’s impressive length. Adesta bucked against him. Adesta tightened his ass around Marc’s cock and Marc’s control broke. He began thrusting deep and hard while he pumped the Cerian’s slick cock in his hand.

  Tight burning pleasure gathered in Marc’s balls. He wanted this to last longer, but he was going to come any second. He slammed into Adesta as hard as he could. The seductive bastard was getting no mercy from him. His wolf approved of his brutality, and he fought against the beast’s need for freedom.

  Adesta made a strangled sound and stiffened. Marc growled as the Cerian’s cock spasmed in his hand. Marc felt his claws forming. He knew fur was starting to grow on his limbs. He wanted to stop the change, but all he could do was pound his cock into Adesta’s burning hot ass.

  * * *

  Shit! Fuck! What was happening? Kirlos had heard rumors that some of the men the Cerians had fought weren’t entirely human. His men had said some of them could become beasts, like something out of a Cerian fairy tale. But he’d thought the reports were exaggerated. Now he realized the animalistic glow in his guards’ eyes was only a glimpse of what they could become.

  He’d thought he’d won, that he’d be able to strike a deal with Devlin when they recovered from this round of scorching sex. Now, he didn’t think he’d live past the next few moments.

  Devlin’s nails had become razor sharp claws. Kirlos felt a furry body rubbing against his back and snarls and growls escaped the captain every time he thrust. Once he came, Kirlos was a dead man.

  One last cruel thrust pushed Kirlos forward. He slumped against the bed as Devlin filled his ass with a load of hot come. Every part of his body ached. His back and thighs felt like someone had set fire to them, and his ass
was impossibly stretched. He had no energy left to fight off a wolf attack.

  Devlin leaned further forward, covering his back. Thick fur rasped across Kirlos’s welts, making him whimper. He felt Devlin’s hot breath on his neck. The man-turned-wolf gave a slow, vicious snarl. Kirlos tensed, ready for fangs to pierce his flesh. Then suddenly, Devlin was gone.

  Adesta let air into his lungs again. He didn’t dare move. Seconds passed then he heard fabric rustling. He dared to look over his shoulder. Devlin, fully human once again, was getting dressed. “You’re free to go. I’ll send someone with ointment to soothe your back. Ask for whatever food and clothing you need. My operations officer will arrange free passage to wherever you need to go.”

  Kirlos couldn’t believe what he’d heard. “You’re just letting me go?”

  “My loss of control was unforgivable. I may be a bastard, but I don’t kill men I’ve just fucked.”

  Devlin’s hands were shaking as he fastened his pants. The man was spooked as hell. I don’t want to leave. The thought stunned Kirlos but he knew it was true. “You didn’t hurt me more than I wanted to be hurt.”

  Devlin pulled on his boots and put his arms through his shirt. He didn’t bother to button it before he collected his jacket and holster from the floor. “I damn near ripped out your throat. Lust and hunger are too damn closely linked for me.”

  “But you stopped yourself.”

  “This time.” Devlin turned to leave the room.

  “Has this happened before?”

  “No.”

  Devlin stomped from the room, and Kirlos heard the whoosh of the main door as it retracted.

  * * *

  Claire, the station’s operations officer, minimized the map on her monitor and turned to face Kirlos. “Where would you like to go, Major Adesta?”

  “I’d like to see the captain.”

  “The captain cannot be disturbed, but he has given me orders to assist you any way I can.”

  “I want to apply for a position on this station.”

  Claire’s eyes widened. “Sir?”