Owned by Luna Voss
15
Barion
“I’m sorry I have to leave, but I’ll be back home to you as soon as I can,” I whisper, kissing Melyta’s forehead. She looks up at me groggily, still half asleep.
I watch her for a moment, my heart feeling like it’s going to explode. Waking up next to her this morning was emotional for me in a way I hadn’t anticipated. I think a part of me was still expecting to wake up alone, with Melyta gone again.
But that’s not what happened. Melyta is still here. Living, breathing, warm.
Mine.
I can’t resist kissing her on the forehead again, just to see her smile.
“You’ll be back soon?” she asks, opening her eyes and blinking. She looks so comfortable in my bed.
“Promise,” I say, kissing her on the lips. She keeps me there for a moment, running her fingers through the back of my hair, extending the kiss.
And then I leave to go meet Sarizor Dultaz, and update him on my progress searching for the woman who I intend to make my mate, and who he expects me to hunt down and eventually kill.
Sarizor wants me to meet him at the hospital where his son Gurtion is in a coma. I have to admit, the idea makes me nervous, even though it’s not like Gurt can tell anyone what happened.
Yet.
Still, I remind myself, it’s not like Gurt saw that it was me driving the car. There’s really nothing to connect me to that incident at all.
Nothing except for Melyta. If Gurt wakes up, she’ll never be safe in this city.
I hope he never wakes up.
“Barion,” Sarizor greets me, his expression dour. Everyone else in the hospital room immediately scurries to leave. It’s obvious that this meeting is to be between the two of us, and no one else.
Well, the two of us and Gurt, who is lying motionless in the bed next to us. Although something tells me he isn’t listening.
“Sarizor,” I reply, nodding my head respectfully. I take a moment to look at Gurt, trying to fake concern for his condition.
“Look what they did to him,” spits the Dultaz family boss, staring a hole through his son’s face.
“Do you know who did it?” I ask cautiously. “They need to pay.”
Sarizor fixes me with a glare. “That’s what I came here to ask you. Finding Melyta Bartryz is your job.”
I scratch my head. “You really think the girl has anything to do with this? Look, it’s not like Gurt didn’t have enemies. I think she was just a waitress. Maybe we should be looking elsewhere.”
“Obviously she was just a waitress. But do you think she decided to take on the Dultaz Family all by herself? She’s the key to all this. She was working for someone. If we want to find out who that someone is, we find her and make her talk.”
I nod, pretending to agree. “Understood. But it may take some time. As far as I can tell, she’s left the city. I don’t even know if Melyta Bartryz is her real name.”
Sarizor swears loudly, and I can’t tell if he’s angry at me, or at the situation. When his gaze returns to my face, his eyes are narrowed dangerously.
Angry at me, then.
“Barion, you’re my second-in-command for a reason. I give you a lot of responsibility, and you shoulder it well.” He steps forward, into my personal space. “But right now, you have one responsibility. One. Find Melyta Bartryz. Or whatever the fuck her name is. Find her, and hurt her however you have to until you know who attacked my son. That’s your job. Your only job. If you can’t do that, I’ll find someone who will. Do you understand me?”
I nod, my mouth dry. “I understand, Sarizor.”
He turns away from me, looking back at his comatose son. “Good. Now leave us.”
* * *
Melyta
Well. That escalated quickly. If you had told me a day ago that my night would end with me kissing Barion and then sleeping with him, let’s just say I would have been pretty skeptical. But that’s exactly what happened. And I can’t believe how right it feels.
Every reason I had a year ago for not wanting to be with him is still valid. Every single reason. If anything, now I have more reasons, considering it’s his family that’s trying to kill me. And yet somehow, he’s become the only part of this experience that hasn’t completely sucked. I feel safe around him. I feel like I can be myself around him.
Even if sometimes, it earns me a spanking.
I find myself smiling slightly as I remember the two times he’s disciplined me since I’ve been living with him. Like yeah, in the moment I’m going to do everything I can to avoid getting my ass spanked, and maybe it’s true that I can get a little bit snarky about it. But Barion doesn’t seem fazed by it at all. He just takes it in stride. There’s this calm, patient authority to him that I really appreciate, even when he’s being stern.
The idea that I could feel this way about a vostrat is slightly shocking to me. That’s why I left him, after all, when he mated me the first time. The Vostra are criminals. Murderous criminals, who lie and steal and use violence to get their way. I never thought I could be with a man like that.
Barion isn’t like that. At least, not in the way I expected. He doesn’t treat me anything like Gurt did at the restaurant, for instance. He seems to genuinely care about my well-being, so much that he was willing to put himself in danger to save me from his own organization. That’s actually really admirable, considering I was the one who rejected his mark.
I still don’t know what I’m doing. Right now, I can’t think further ahead than a couple days, much less to my next heat. I don’t know if I want him to claim me forever, or if we’re going to part ways the moment it’s safe for me to emerge from hiding. All I know is that he makes me feel safe, and he makes me feel happy. And that I’m really looking forward to seeing him when he gets home today.
There’s another note from him on the counter when I go downstairs. I smile. I was hoping there would be.
Melyta—
Let’s make dinner together when I get home. I left money and details for a hotel if you want to call your friend. By the way, you look pretty when you sleep.
Aw. I’m pretty sure sleeping me is a nightmare of drool and messy hair, but he’s sweet for saying it. Next to the note is the name of a hotel and a credit chip that’s already set up to transfer funds. There are 10,000 credits on it, more than enough for Jenyta to get herself a room and stay there for a while.
When I go to use the house’s communication console, I see that calls have been re-enabled. I guess Barion trusts me now, or at least, enough. I put in my friend’s contact information and make the call.
“Hey Mel, what’s up?” Jenyta answers. I can hear voices in the background.
“Are you at a party or something?”
“Yeah, my aunt and uncle have a few people over. Kind of boring, if I’m being honest. How are you?”
I hesitate. How the hell am I supposed to start this conversation?
“Well… It’s been interesting,” I begin.
There’s a rustling sound on Jenyta’s end, and it sounds like she’s moving to a quieter room. The background noise dies down. “Sounds like there’s a story there,” she says. “Give it to me.”
Well, here goes nothing, I guess. “Okay, so… You remember that Vostra guy who I, uh… you know, at that catering event a year ago?”
Jenyta is silent for a long moment. “Yeah, I remember,” she says finally.
I tell her everything, my heart racing the entire time that I’m speaking. I tell her about the incident with Gurt in the restaurant, and Henry the busboy getting shot. About Barion rescuing me, and literally running down those thugs in the street to save my life. About the chase with the cab driver.
I tell her about what happened last night. About how I slept with him. And how I’m feeling about him now.
Finally, I don’t have anything more to say. I fall silent, nervously waiting for her response. I really poured it all out there.
“… Holy shit,” Jenyta breathes. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. And I’m really, really sorry that you can’t go back to the apartment. Barion gave me money to pay for a hotel room, I can send it to—”
“You pissed off a bunch of Vostra gangsters so badly that they came looking for you at home, then you got rescued by he-who-shall-not-be-spoken-of, a man whose mark I literally helped you erase from your neck, and now you’re fucking him?”
I pause. “Yeah, pretty much. He’s also spanked me a couple times.”
Dead silence. For about five seconds. And then, at the same time, both of us burst out laughing. I find myself doing it even harder than she is, so hard that tears stream down my face. It’s a release of emotion, of all the fear and tension I’ve dealt with these last couple days. It feels really, really good just to laugh. And to hear my friend’s voice, and to know that she isn’t mad, or judging me.
“Are you going to be okay?” Jenyta asks when our laughter dies down. “Like, seriously, are you going to be okay?”
“I think so. Or maybe I won’t, and you’ll find me dead in a gutter somewhere. Sorry, bad joke. If worst comes to worst, I can always leave the planet. Barion said that would be safe for me, at least. But I hope I can stay here.”
“Are you going to… stay with him?”
I know she’s asking about the longer-term, but I decide to answer in the short-term. “I will for now. At least I’m safe with him. His house is probably the safest place for me in the whole city.”
“Yeah, and it sounds like you got laid something fierce last night. I’m sure that isn’t a factor at all in your decision-making.”
I laugh. “Hey, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. Promise me you won’t go back to the apartment until I tell you that it’s clear?”
“Yeah, I promise. Be safe, okay, Mel?”
Barion pulls into the garage just as I’m starting to get hungry. I have butterflies in my stomach as I wait for him to walk up to the house. I’ve never been excited like this about a man before.
“Hey,” I greet him shyly. He’s wearing a dark suit and looks very handsome.
If I thought he was going to be awkward about seeing me, boy, was I wrong. He smiles as he approaches, then leans down and kisses me on the lips.
“Hey,” he says, holding me by my waist.
I can’t believe how comfortable things feel as we make our way to the kitchen and start preparing dinner together. The conversation is so easy, the little moments of eye contact so intense. It’s as though we’ve been mates for a long time, but underneath it all, there’s still this simmering desire that neither of us have fully realized. I still don’t know what we are yet, or even what I want us to be. I do know that he looks adorable with a big dollop of flour covering his nose.
“How did you get flour on your nose?” I laugh, reaching over to brush it off. “All we needed was a little bit to thicken it.”
He sticks out his tongue. “You have flour on you, too, you know.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Where?”
He extends a white, flour-covered finger and wipes it on my cheek. “Right here, on your face.”
“Stop it!” I giggle, scooping up some ammo to return fire, “you’re going to make a mess!”
Soon we’re in a full-on flour fight, and the kitchen looks like a bakery where a bomb went off.
“Now who’s making a mess?” Barion laughs, jumping to the side as I launch a handful at his chest.
“We literally only needed a tiny scoop,” I lament, dodging as he returns fire, the powder splashing all over the cabinets behind me. “Do you have another bag of flour somewhere? Because I’m pretty sure it’s all on the floor now.”
Barion grins. “And the cabinets. No regrets. We’ll order something to eat.” He bites his lip, and it looks like he’s considering something. “Actually— I know exactly what I want to eat. Come.”
He takes my hand and leads me over to the one part of the counter that isn’t a complete mess, then picks me up and lifts me so that I’m sitting on it. I throw him a bemused look. “Hey, what are you—”
And then his intentions become very clear as he bends down and starts to kiss my inner thighs, all the way to the hem of my skirt.
“Oh,” is all I can think to say, my heart already beating faster.
“I’ve been dying to find out what you taste like,” Barion whispers, kissing his way back down to my knees. He stops and starts to kiss his way upward again. “And now I’m going to get my wish.”
“You are, are you?“ I tease him, closing my legs and denying him access.
He puts a hand on each of my thighs and pries them easily back apart. “Yes, I am,” he growls, looking me dead in the eye.
Barion slips a hand under my dress and starts to work my panties down my legs. I shift on the counter, helping him, allowing him to bare me. I’m already so turned on I’m sure he can smell it.
“Your cunt is fucking perfect,” he breathes, his lips now perilously close to my sensitive places. He’s teasing me now, taking his time. He knows how bad I want it.
“Are you just going to look at it?” I shoot back, giving in to my frustration. It’s agonizing, having him so close, but so far.
He just smiles and gives me a look that makes it clear this is going to happen on his terms, not mine. I bite my lip, feeling a little surge of submissive enjoyment at my lack of control.
Finally, after kissing every fucking place on my lower body other than my pussy, his lips make their way up to my sensitive folds. I let out a throaty moan without even meaning to. After all his teasing, I’m ridiculously sensitive.
Barion makes several long, slow strokes of his tongue, licking me all the way from top to bottom. Then his mouth lands directly on my clit.
”Oh, fuck,” I moan, throwing my head back and clutching at his shoulders. “Oh my god, don’t stop.”
And he fucking does stop, just long enough to give me a mischievous little grin. I don’t have long to be mad at him, however, because a moment later his mouth is back on my clit again, and I’m in so much pleasure I don’t even think I can form words.
A growl of satisfaction rumbles in Barion’s throat, vibrating through me. I glance down at him and see his beacon glowing bright gold, mixed with tinges of green. He makes eye contact, and I just about come right there.
I throw my head back. I’ve never had anyonemake me feel like this, much less with their tongue. Fuck, that feels good. I can feel the softness of his lips, the warmth of his breath… I sigh asthe first tingles of my orgasm start to appear.
Crash!
A plate falls from the counter next to me onto the floor. Oops. Did I do that? Embarrassed, I try to jump off the counter to clean up the pieces, but Barion grips my hips firmly, holding me in place, not allowing me to move.
“Stay,” he growls, before returning his mouth my clit.
I can barely keep still as he pleasures me, my climax mounting. I stroke his hair, desperate to have something to do with my hands.
And then the pleasure gets so intense that I can’t stand it anymore, and like a dam breaking, my orgasm floods over me. I’m rocked by wave after wave as my pussy twitches against his mouth, shocking me with the intensity of it. I don’t think I’ve ever had a climax this intense. It just keeps going and going and—
Crash!
At first I think I knocked another plate off the counter, but that’s not right. There aren’t any plates near me, and anyway, the crash came from the other side of the kitchen. What the fuck? Barion stands up immediately, a pistol suddenly in his hand that I didn’t even realize he was carrying.
He walks to the other side of the kitchen and bends down. When he stands up, he’s holding the broken remains of a drinking glass.
“This was hanging on the dish rack,” he says, scratching his chin. “There are like four of them down here.”
“What the hell happened?” I ask, alarmed.
He raises his eyebrows and gives me a look of utter approval. “I think that was you.”
“Me?”
“Your power.”
I look down, suddenly breathless for a reason other than the fact that I just got ate out. The idea of my power is something I’ve barely considered. It’s something that all unsuppressed Voorian women supposedly have, a telekinetic ability that only expresses itself when sexually satisfied by a dominant mate. A compatible mate. A fated mate, some might say.
Barion just walks over and kisses me, cupping my face in his hands. I kiss him back, heart racing, pussy still twitching occasionally from my orgasm.
“We’ll order dinner,” he whispers, glancing around at the ruined kitchen, “and I’ll figure out the cleaning tomorrow. Tonight, I want you all to myself.”
We order Voorian food, then eat it in front of the TV together, cuddling and smiling at each other. It feels like the awesome, comfortable relationship I always wanted, but never had. Except I always pictured it taking place in some dingy, one-bedroom apartment somewhere, not, you know, a Vostra mansion.
When it’s time for us to go to bed, he leads me upstairs to his bedroom and begins to undress me with a calm insistence. “I’m going to knot you now, Melyta,” he whispers.
I nod, my mouth dry. I’ve been waiting for this. To feel his knot inside me again. I’ve thought about it damn near every day for the last year.
Barion’s muscular torso ripples in the dim lighting as he climbs on top of me on the bed. I sigh in satisfaction as I feel his warm, naked body press down onto mine.
We both moan as he slips inside me.
Sex is slow this time. Passionate. There’s lots of stopping, breathing, looking into each other’s eyes. It’s more about the experience than the goal.
“Are you ready?” he whispers, stroking the hair out of my face.
I nod, feeling so small and feminine as I lie there underneath him.
His ragged breathing turns into a groan as his knot begins to grow inside me. For the briefest of moments it hurts, and I feel my flesh stretching around him to accommodate his new size.
But then it all turns to bliss.
“That feels so good,” Barion whispers, his eyes glazed over. “You feel so good.”
It takes a moment before I can answer. The pleasure, the sensation of being filled by him, is so intense. “I don’t ever want this to stop.”
He starts to rock his hips. Slowly at first, then faster, until he milks another orgasm out of me that hits so fast I’m completely unprepared for it. My pussy shudders around his cock, my walls squeezing the thick, fleshy knot at the base.
“I can feel you coming,” he whispers in my ear as my whole body trembles and I cling to him. “I can feel every… ohhhh…”
And then his cock starts to twitch, too, and a warmth spreads inside me that I know must be his seed. He groans in my ear, and I feel his heart beating very fast.
“I’m keeping you,” he growls, a determination in his voice that I’ve never heard before. I glance up at him, and his eyes flash with purpose as he looks down at me. “I don’t know how. I don’t care how. But I’m keeping you, Melyta. I’m going to make you my vulta, and then I’m going to make you my mate. And nothing is ever going to hurt you or come between us.”
