Breeding Ground Part 26

Alex's smile was anything but kind. "What's the problem? Aren't the men of your race strong enough to deal with women who can think?" Watching his nostrils flare, she enjoyed the knowledge she was irritating him. "Afraid the little girlies might say something to make the big, bad Xandis cry?"

"Enough!" he bellowed, slas.h.i.+ng a hand through the air. He leaned in close, his reptilian face a breath away from hers. The sight of his predator's teeth made her heart pound. "Your words are treasonous and I should punish you for them."

"What will you do?" she whispered back, her gaze locked challengingly with his. She refused to show the fear she felt. "Starve me? Not give me water? Hmmm...that's scary," she taunted. "Never happened to me before."

"Little girl," he murmured, "one day you will push me too far." He stood up, looming over her with ten-and-a-half-feet and probably six hundred pounds of deadly, ripped muscle. "You needs must learn to listen."

Alex shook her head on a sigh. "Your people are as sick and depraved as the Takuri. The humans enslave men, the Xandi enslave women. I'd say you deserve each other." She gave him her back and walked toward the post she'd been hitched to. "But since I belong to neither race, I just want out of this nightmare."

Silence.

"If you are not Takuri," the deep, male voice murmured, "then what species are you?"

She sighed like a martyr. "You wouldn't believe me even if I told you."

"Tell me. I command you."

Alex c.o.c.ked her head to look at him. Her gaze raked over his serious features. "I don't respond well to threats."

She could have sworn she heard the beast sigh. Oddly charming.

His jaw tightened. "Tell me. Please," he gruffly added.

"Unchain me," she said softly, "and I just might."

His smile was as grating to her as hers had been to him. "Not a chance."

Chapter Sixteen.

Malik had made certain that the mesmerized females were the first sights Alexandria encountered upon waking in order to give her a mild taste of what life was like for domesticated Takuri females in Tongor. Human women were captured by their mates, collared and hypnotized until they were impregnated, and then fully mated and mesmerized. They lived out the remainder of their days in peaceful bliss with their respective masters, wanting for naught and cherished by their husbands.

He had shown Alexandria the mesmerized females even while knowing that the mortal queen was, herself, unable to be mesmerized. Malik had hoped she would see the beauty of the symbiotic relations.h.i.+p; understand that the Takuri were not harmed by Xandi males, merely tamed.

Apparently, the human queen was unmoved by such a notion.

Malik walked out onto the private balcony of his bedchamber and breathed in the purity of the red-tinted air. From his position above he could see some of the kingdom below that he would forever rule.

Simple homes of commoners which had been crafted from red clay and black earth and were nestled in circular precision around the palace. The larger, more expensive gold and metallic dwellings of the Xandi warriors which were positioned in circular precision around the commoners. The death pits beyond the homes of the warriors-black holes in the earth where heretics were offered down to the loma as meals.

Everything was as it should be. Everything was as it had been for thousands upon thousands of years.

This woman, this so-called Alexandria the Great, dare mocked all that Malik had been raised to believe was superior and just. One-thousand-four-hundred-twenty-six years ago, he had been born to a mortal Xandi sire from the womb of a mortal, mesmerized, Takuri mother. She had lived out her years in the very happy, sublime state the human queen scoffed at.

Malik's muscles tensed as he stared at nothing, his gaze absently raking over the world he had vowed to protect from the time he was old enough to understand the scope of the twenty thousand years-long war that had raged on-and the impact it had on his race. Alexandria was not the first Takuri to balk at the sight of a mesmerized female. The only difference between her and the thousands before her was the fact that, even though she didn't yet realize it and perhaps feared a similar fate, she was incapable of being forced into a symbiotic relations.h.i.+p.

She had to choose it.

He took a deep breath in and slowly exhaled. One way or another he would bring her to heel. She would come to see the Xandi way of life as superior. The prophesized queen of humans would bow down before him...not just physically, but mentally as well.

By immobilizing Alexandria the Great, Malik took away the Takuri's sole symbol of hope. Without her intervention and determination, their spirits would dampen and they would, at long last, be forced under Xandi dominion. Such was the way of nature.

Such was destiny.

Malik clenched and released his fist. He had endured more battles with the loma and other lower orders of predators than he could name, yet never had he felt such tension consume him as this. For the first time in his mortal and immortal lives, he didn't know where to begin or how to proceed. All that he did know was it had to be accomplished. There was too much at stake for failure.

"You will be mine, Alexandria," he murmured. Coal-black hair threaded with golden highlights whipped in the wind. Serpentine-gold eyes narrowed in concentration, determination. "One way or another, you will be mine."

Naked, Alex was led by her collar down a long, ornate corridor. Her eyes widened as she took in the architecture, immediately noting the resemblance between Xandi art and artifacts that would have been found in ancient Egypt. Too weird. Whomever had said that history repeats itself had said a mouthful. The Takuri civilization rivaled ancient Greece and the Xandi civilization was a throwback to dead Egypt.

Malik held the lead to the chain that kept her bound to him. She had seen other black, winged, reptilian creatures s.h.i.+ft into man-like forms, but she'd never seen their king do so. She wondered if he was capable of it or if his beast form was an immobile one. And if he was capable of shape-s.h.i.+fting, she wondered why he had never done so in her presence.

The other form she'd seen various Xandi take on, the humanesque one, was very similar to Takuri males. Xandi men were built a bit taller and more inherently muscular, but from the neck down they otherwise looked like any other human. It was just the face that was different.

Xandi faces reminded Alex of fabled vampires. Their expressions were intensely brooding, their incisors were undeniably fangs, and the pupils of their eyes were slit like snakes while the irises remained gold no matter what form they took on.

Those were the differences. In all other physical aspects, they could have pa.s.sed for Takuri.

The sound of boisterous laughter startled Alex out of her reverie. She tensed up when Malik led her into a dining hall, her nudity there for all to see. Approximately forty people were situated around one long table, twenty Xandi males and twenty of those brainwashed females. The women, like her, were all naked. The men, unlike the nude black reptile holding her chain, were dressed in thigh-high leather skirts of various hues and matching leather knee-high boots. All of them stood up when their king approached.

"Great One," they murmured in unison.

Malik nodded and they sat down. The scent of food reached Alex's nostrils, making her belly rumble. Her captor glanced back, looking pointedly at her stomach and then into her eyes. He leaned his reptilian face in close to hers and murmured, "Do you show them your obedience to me, you will eat."

She frowned, but said nothing. She wasn't certain she understood how she was to show her obedience, and she deeply suspected she didn't want to find out, but sweet G.o.d did her belly want food. Unlike the main entree in Zala, roasted fish tongue, this smorgasbord of treats actually looked and smelled good. Her mouth began to water.

Malik took his ornamental seat at the head of the table. The chair was red and quite large, big enough to support the weight of a creature his size. Alex made a move to sit in the unoccupied and far less ostentatious seat next to his, but he yanked at the chain.

"Before you are permitted to sit at the same table with these civilized females," he announced, making her teeth grind together, "you must demonstrate your willingness to please your king-G.o.d."

Alex looked at Malik hesitantly. She wasn't in the mood for a war of the wills. She was tired, she was hungry, and she needed sustenance badly. Unless he wanted her to rip out someone's heart and eat it, or some other G.o.d-awful ritual, she prepared herself to do as he said. For now.

"Sit up on the table in front of me," he ordered. "Then lie on your back and spread your legs."

Her heart began to pound. She hadn't been prepared for a show like that. Would he choose this moment for their first penetration? In front of forty of his people? Her face flushed with humiliation at the mere thought.

All eyes were on her. She glanced away from Malik, but could feel his stare still on her. She looked at the food, then away from it. Then back to the food, then away again. She must have repeated the action a dozen or so times before finally deciding that, come what may, she was going to eat. Alex consoled herself with the knowledge that she had to be healthy when her crew arrived to rescue her or it would be difficult on them to get her out of here.

Be strong, Commander Frazier. Don't let this break you.

Doing as she'd been instructed, Alex hopped up on the table in front of Malik. His men began to cheer and laugh as she lay down on her back and spread her legs. Fire suffused her cheeks, but otherwise she betrayed no emotion.

"Beg me," he said thickly. "Beg your king-G.o.d to taste your cream."

The men laughed louder. Alex's cheeks burned brighter. She ignored her embarra.s.sment and concentrated on the objective-food.

"Please..." she said softly, "please taste my cream."