Own Her by Jenika Snow
14
They had just landed, and Mekenna was still stunned at her surroundings. The cliff they were on was as black as the night, as dark as her males’ eyes. Yes, they were her males, and she wore their marks on her neck to prove that.
She stayed back as they finished shutting down and locking up the spacecraft. It wasn’t the largest one she had seen but definitely had a lot of amenities. But Viktor had explained that on their world, they lived a more primitive life, one where the luxuries that surrounded her in her former life wouldn’t be a common sight.
Mekenna didn’t care though and, in fact, didn’t want amenities that would blind her with the cost or abundance. She’d lived a poverty-stricken life personally, and just because she had been surrounded by wealth didn’t mean she had really experienced any of that.
She had been a servant, the lowest of the low, because of her genetics. Living in a cave with nothing but a flame and pallet as her possessions was fine as long as she had these three males in her life.
Moving toward the cliff, she made sure to keep a safe distance but still looked over the edge. A grand ocean of flames and lava was a hundred feet below, the bubbling and popping of the creatures moving beneath it evident even from her height.
Lifting her gaze, she stared at the sharp and jagged black mountains that were in the distance beside them, and on the other side of the fiery ocean was the forest of flames the brothers had talked about. She didn’t recall each name of these parts of their world, but it was all very fantastical.
“Ready, mate?” Savastian asked and moved toward her. Fillip and Viktor were finishing with closing up the ship. They turned and faced her, and images of what they had all shared passed through her mind.
The three marks on her neck burned with passion. She placed a hand on her throat, felt the first two marks from the brothers, and then lifted her other hand and touched the third one. Savastian was right in front of her, removed her hands, and placed his mouth over his mark.
“You make me crazy with lust, my female.”
A shiver worked its way through her body after Savastian spoke. “The three of you make my thoughts go all jumbled.” She laughed at her juvenile words, but the heat in their gazes had her amusement at her response drying up. Viktor and Fillip moved closer, their erections clearly pushing against their leathers, and low growls of desire left them.
They were insatiable for her, but then again, she felt the same way for them. It was all very strange to feel this way, to have these emotions for men she just met. But this was not a normal situation or claiming, and she hadn’t led a normal life.
Savastian wrapped his arms around her, lifted her so she was now being cradled, and smiled down at her. It was unusual to feel this sensation inside her when she looked at each of them. She felt this connection, this need that moved through her and stole her sanity and thoughts on what was the right and wrong way to go about living her new life.
Maybe it was because they saved her from a life that had been a fate worse than hell, a life that was demeaning and hurtful, filled with no love whatsoever.
They had taken her away from a life that was slowly killing her.
The sound of Savastian’s wings emerging surrounded her. The feel of the wind increasing as he flapped them had her glancing at the other two brothers. Fillip and Viktor were also letting their wings come out, and the impressive sight of them stunned her.
Their wings were tipped with claws, dark and sharp, deadly, and she knew they were used as weapons. The wingspan itself was monstrously huge, at least double the size of their seven feet height. And then Viktor and Fillip were airborne. The wind picked up, hot and dry, and she stared at the two males that were like demons… her demons.
Their big red bodies, their black claws that tipped their massive, strong hands, and the black wings that curled and unfurled as they kept airborne were like a violent, frightening, arousing vision.
“Are you ready to see your new home, my female?” Savastian asked.
She stared at him, got lost in the dark gaze as he held her, and knew she had never been more ready for something in her life than she was right now. “I’ve never been more ready than I am for this.”
Savastian grinned, his fangs flashing at her. And then he was in the air too and flying behind his brothers. She closed her eyes, excited and anticipating the flight.
“You don’t want to miss this, Mekenna,” he said in a deep voice.
She looked at everything, trying to take in as much as she could. They were high enough that the tops of the jagged mountains were feet below them. He curled his claws deeper into her skin, not breaking the flesh but making sure to keep her close. The heat of his body and the warmth of the air had beads of sweat lining the area between her breasts.
But the heat didn’t bother her, and in fact the wind on her face and the open air had her lifting her arms out and closing her eyes again. She laughed, feeling like she was the one flying on her own, nothing stopping her. There was the idea that if he dropped her, she could fall to her death, but not even that could sway her happiness.
“These are the Tartanaian Mountains,” Savastian said, and she opened her eyes to see what he referred to. “Many Hades warriors make their home in the mountains.” They moved toward the farthest part of the ocean, and she stared at the horrendous, scary creatures that broke through the fiery liquid.
They were scaly, flames coming from their bodies, their eyes a glowing yellow in color, and their fangs like massive swords. She held onto Savastian harder, and he chuckled.
“I’ll never let you go, female.” He leaned in close and inhaled deeply from her hair. He turned right and headed toward the forest of fire. “And that is our home, deep within the Brokaou forest of flames. There are caves buried in the ground. It’s safe and will be all ours, dimina.”
He dipped low, and she noticed the way he curled his wings further into his body and turned to clear the narrow opening. He soared lower to clear the mountains, and then he was landing on the dark, rocky ground of the entrance at the forest opening.
Sebastian took her hand, and Fillip and Viktor stepped beside and behind her. They then walked into the forest. She tilted her head back, looking at the fires that topped these majestic-looking trees with the black-and-white trunks.
She moved past one of the trunks and saw the smooth, almost glassy-looking texture, but didn’t dare touch anything. The farther they went into the forest, the more the heat surrounded them. Pieces of fire seemed to fall from the sky, landing in odd places around them.
She pressed closer to Savastian, feeling the other two brothers move closer to her as well, and didn’t know how she could survive a world so destructive.
An outcropping of caves could be seen up ahead, but before they even made it another foot, all three males stopped. They caged her in, reached for their weapons, and became deathly still and silent.
Was a predator close by? Was danger too great for them to handle about to attack them? Gods, she hated not knowing, and she couldn’t even see anything aside from their firm, red backs as they kept her blocked in with the protection of their bodies.
Mekenna closed her eyes, slowly counted to regain her thoughts, and when she got to ten, she opened them once more, ready to face whatever had altered the men. She heard the hissing and growling sound coming closer and closer. Twigs snapped, echoing off the fire trees, and when Fillip shifted on his feet, she could see through the gap between the brothers’ bodies this horrendous beast moving toward them.
“She needs to get to the caves,” Viktor said, and he took a step closer. He had a sword in one hand, and his wings slightly unfurled, the tips pointed toward the front of his body as weapons.
The other two brothers glanced at him, and then Fillip backed up, grabbed her around the waist, and pressed her back to his chest. He was ten feet off the ground only seconds later, and although there were trees surrounding them, their branches were so high in the air they were not an obstruction if he needed to fly.
He wouldn’t be able to go very fast, but unless that creature could fly as well, it wouldn’t be able to get them.
Fillip stayed airborne for a few moments, and she watched in horror as the beast charged forward. It didn’t have wings, but its body was close to the ground, long, and scaly, and the tongue that came out of its mouth was tipped with a flame. It slithered like a snake but so much faster that her heart was in her throat.
Everything seemed to happen so quickly, and although she was not in the line of danger being in the air like this, she felt like she was in the thick of the fight.
This disgusting black substance dripped out of its gaping mouth, and when it hissed, the onyx-colored goo sprayed from it. It stopped a few feet from the brothers on the ground, but they had their weapons drawn, their wings out, and didn’t look afraid at all.
More hissing and screeching came from the creature, and it was loud and ear-piercing.
“Everything will be okay, Mekenna,” Fillip said close to her ear. “As soon as the beast is not in that direction, I will take you to the cave.”
She nodded.
“It can jump and spray poisonous venom that is toxic, and I won’t risk even a drop getting on you.”
The creature hissed, and more goo came out of its mouth to land on the rock beneath it, causing a sizzling effect. It was toxic and could eat right through stone. She didn’t breathe, couldn’t for that matter. But when the creature lunged forward and swiped out at one of the warriors, she made a little involuntary cry.
She’d just met them, just gotten them in her lives. She did not want to lose them now.
Savastian slashed out with his blade, cutting the beast on the side of the face. The creature made this loud, blood-curdling cry and tried to get the brothers with its long claws. With the light from the fires above flickering over his massive body, she could see the creature’s blood splashed on Viktor’s and Savastian’s bodies.
Watching them fight, cut into the animal’s scaly and black, oily flesh, and hearing the roars come from the beast as it was slowly dying had relief and fear moving through her. It was strange to have this danger right in front of her, because all her life, she had been sheltered.
She watched the horror play out, saw the men fighting like it wasn’t anything frightening or dangerous, and then finally exhaled when Viktor sliced his blade through the creature’s head. The beast fell to its side, the head right beside the body, and its now lifeless eyes staring right at her.
Fillip kissed her on the back of the head, and murmured in his native language, “You’re safe.”
She closed her eyes, felt her body start to tremble with the aftereffects of what just happened, and realized her life could have drastically changed once again in the blink of her eye.
