Owned by Luna Voss
9
Barion
Melyta looks like she just saw a ghost. Which I guess in a certain sense, she did. “You?” she says in a small, stunned voice.
I just nod and turn the car back onto the freeway. I’m not any happier with the situation than she is. Even less so after that moment of… whatever that was. Temptation. Need. Longing. For something I can’t have.
“I don’t have any interest in mating with you,” I announce gruffly, wanting to reassure her. It’s important that she knows I’m not here for that. I’m not trying to reclaim my lost mate or any of that sappy, fairytale bullshit. I’m just trying to do the right thing for once in my life.
It would be easier to lie to myself if she didn’t smell so fucking good.
She nods, then turns out the window and doesn’t look at me. That’s fine. We’re not here to look at each other. As long as I know she’s safe.
“What’s your name?” she asks eventually, surprising me. I hadn’t expected her to care.
“Barion,” I grunt.
“Barion Dultaz?”
I don’t say anything. She doesn’t need to know my full name, or what family I belong to. Even if she seems to have already guessed.
The question of what to do with her is pressing, and I don’t have an answer for it. All the obvious places for her to stay are Vostra hangouts.
Except, well, my house. The most obvious place. The one she already suggested.
Of course, that was before I took my mask off. I doubt she wants to go there with me now. Now that she knows who I am.
As we drive together in silence, I notice a sweet tinge to Melyta’s scent. There’s fear, too, but what’s underneath it is unmistakable: some part of her is aroused. I’d know that smell anywhere, after our night together a year ago. I wonder if she’s thinking about that night, too. About the night I claimed her and marked her and took her as my own.
How could she not be thinking about it?
Even with my mark gone from her neck, she and I are connected. That genetic compatibility that led us together, that thing that some people call fate, whatever that is, it isn’t gone. It’s just as strong as the night we first met each other. It’s what makes her smell so sweet, and why it’s impossible for her to hide her arousal from me.
It’s why I couldn’t resist marking her that night, no matter how hard I tried.
I’ll have to resist this time.
“If you’re going to stay with me, you’re going to have to follow my rules,” I tell her, grimacing as I make up my mind. “Without exception.”
She turns to me and raises her eyebrows. “I can stay with you?”
“I said if.”
“Okay. If I follow your rules. What are your rules?”
“I haven’t decided yet. This situation is new.”
“So I have to agree to follow rules you haven’t even decided on yet?”
“Yes. For your safety.”
“For my safety.”
“Yes.”
She sighs in what sounds like frustration. “And what does my safety have to do with playing your little games?”
“They’re not games. You need to trust me. I can’t take responsibility for your safety if you won’t respect my authority.”
“Oh, so you’re responsible for my safety now?”
“Don’t you want me to be? You’d be tied up in some gangster’s trunk right now if I hadn’t stepped in.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “That’s true,” she admits.
“Look. I don’t want to be around you any more than you want to be around me. But I’m also not going to let you get killed on the street. How about we both play nice with each other, and this doesn’t have to be complicated?”
“Easy for you to say when you’re the one making the rules.”
“Yeah, well, I’m the one taking on a huge amount of unnecessary risk. Listen, I could get killed for helping you the way I did. And for some crazy reason, I’m going to keep helping you. But you have to work with me. In the Vostra, when a female accepts a male’s protection, she also accepts his authority. That’s just the way it works. I can’t protect you if you won’t do what I say.”
She’s quiet for a while, and I imagine that she’s thinking. I stay silent, giving her time to formulate a response.
Then, almost imperceptibly, she nods.
“Is that a yes?”
She nods again, her cheeks reddening.
“I want to hear you say it.”
Her voice is small. “Say what?”
“That you’ll obey me. That you accept my authority.”
Her face gets even redder, and for a split second I catch her beacon flashing gold before she quickly snuffs it out. This sends blood rushing to my cock, even though I know it shouldn’t. She’s turned on by this. There’s a part of her that wants to obey me.
I shouldn’t be surprised by that. It’s not like it’s news to me that we’re genetically compatible. It’s not like I don’t remember her naked, moaning, squirming under me as I pierced her with my knot. I’ve seen all of her before. Including the parts of herself she would only show to her mate.
But I’m not her mate. I’m her protector, nothing more. That’s all I can be. All I want to be, I try and fail to convince myself.
Doing my best to ignore my obnoxiously hard cock, I fix Melyta with what I hope is a stern look. I want her to know that I mean business. That while this isn’t sexual, I do expect her to take it seriously.
She looks down submissively, and I can’t help but notice that the scent of her arousal is back. “I accept.”
A completely unnecessary sense of triumph surges through me. “You accept what?”
“Your authority,” she whispers. “As long as you keep me safe.”
“Good girl,” I tell her, and I could swear that her sweet scent grows even stronger at my words. “And what do you think will happen if you don’t obey me?”
She doesn’t answer, just keeps staring out the window next to her.
“Melyta,”I growl, putting a slight edge into my voice.
“How do you know my name?” she asks suddenly.
“We’ve met before,” I tell her dryly.
She flushes. “But I didn’t tell you my name.”
“I asked about you,” I tell her, which is technically the truth. “After… after you left.”
Melyta’s face flickers, and she nods, not looking at me. “Ah.”
I shoot her a pointed glance. “I’m waiting for you to answer my question. What do you think the consequence will be if you don’t obey me?”
Her face somehow turns redder, and she still doesn’t meet my eye. “I’m a Voorian, too. I know what the consequence is.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
She looks down. “Probably... probably a spanking.”
Fuck. Hearing her say that makes my cock so fucking hard. I’d put her over my knee and spank her bare ass right now if she gave me reason. Just to feel like I own her, even if it’s only for a moment.
But she hasn’t given me a reason. And with any luck, she won’t. Because that’s not what she is to me. And that’s not what I am to her.
“That’s right,” I growl.
She gulps, and doesn’t say anything after that. I’m more than happy to drive in silence as we head through Dalax City to my home.
* * *
Melyta
The back of my neck is covered in goosebumps as the reality of my situation dawns on me. After being chased, shot at, and nearly killed, how is it that he is the part of my night that’s impacted my emotions the most?
I never thought I would see his face again. For some reason, I really didn’t. Not after a few months passed and I stopped looking over my shoulder for him. I figured he must have left the city.
Now he’s sitting next to me. And I’ve agreed to be under his authority. And despite his insistence that he wants nothing to do with me sexually, the tension between us is so thick you could carve through it with a beam-saw.
On top of that, the thought of him putting me over his knee and spanking me has me practically sitting in a puddle. I just can’t seem to picture that and have it not be sexual. When I imagine him disciplining me, it isn’t businesslike, or parental, or routine. It’s intimate. The way it would be between a man and his mate. Try as I might, I can’t seem to separate one from the other.
It’s probably because of all the times I pictured us as a couple over the past year. I never wanted to, but it just happened. In the moments I would feel horny, or alone. He’s the only man to knot me, the only man to mark me, the only man to truly inspire that side of myself that wants to submit, to surrender to another person’s authority. I just don’t know how to think of him as anything but an intimate partner. Just being around him makes me feel naked, as though his mark isn’t fully gone.
But that won’t be a problem for long. Soon I’ll be off this planet, and both Tarsheb 8 and Barion Dultaz will be nothing but a memory.
I startle as we turn off of the highway. I think I must have fallen asleep. I glance at Barion next to me, and the look on his face is something I can’t read. I get the impression he might have been watching me.
“You’re awake,” he says. “Good. We’re almost there.”
“Where is there?”
“My home.”
“You live in Dalax City?”
“Yes.”
“What part of the city?”
He doesn’t answer.
I roll my eyes. “I’m going to see where you live when you drive me there.”
Still no answer. He keeps staring forward.
Maybe I’m still groggy, but I feel like teasing him. “Great conversationalist, you are.”
Exasperation? Amusement? He’s hard to read. “You keep asking questions,” he grunts.
“I mean, it’s your friends who tried to kill me. You don’t think I have the right to ask some questions?”
Barion sighs. After a pause, he shrugs. “What do you want to know?”
Did you feel empty without me this past year, the way I felt empty without you?
“Who exactly wants me dead?”
“It’s not a good idea for me to tell you that.”
“So were you ever going to answer any of my questions?”
A pause. “I live in Tozure Heights,” he tells me. “Almost there now.”
Barion’s place is at the end of a cul-de-sac in one of South Dalax’s richest neighborhoods. I stare out the window as we approach, and every house I see looks like a mansion.
“Do you get along with the neighbors?” I ask, feeling bold enough to attempt a joke.
“Yes,” says Barion. “They all work for me. The Family owns every house on this street.”
The front gate opens for us automatically, presumably responding to a signal from his communicator. He takes us up a short driveway and into the garage of what looks to be one of the nicest houses I’ve ever seen.
Not that I’ve seen a lot of nice houses, in fairness. I’d be worried about getting the cops called on me in a neighborhood like this. But still, this place absolutely screams wealth.
“This isn’t where I expected a vostrat to live,” I admit.
He gives me a confused look. “Why not?”
I take a moment to think about it. Although obviously I associate the Vostra with money, I guess it just hadn’t occurred to me that they would have this kind of money. Of course, I’m probably also lacking context for that kind of thing. I don’t really know what a place like this costs. It’s not like I got to price-check a lot of mansions growing up.
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“You didn’t think I would live in a nice neighborhood?”
“Seems like most Voorians don’t.”
“I’m not most Voorians.”
That’s the truest thing he’s said all night. I step out of the car cautiously and allow him to lead me into his house.
* * *
Barion
I am so, so stupid. This is such a mistake. What the hell am I doing, bringing her into my home?
I mean, I couldn’t leave her out there,I reason with myself.Not with Gurtion and his gang of thugs looking for her. However many of them are still alive after I ran them over with my car.
My heart is racing. What I did tonight was treason against the Family. Punishable by death. And yet somehow, I don’t regret a moment of it. Fuck Sarizor’s shitty son, picking on a random waitress. Fuck him for ever thinking he could touch Melyta. I’ll touch him with my fucking car.
It’s hard to know how much damage I did with my attack, or who I actually hit. But what I do know is, this isn’t over. And until Melyta is off this planet, it’s my job to keep her safe.
“You can sleep in here,” I tell her, pointing to one of the guest rooms. She peers inside, and looks relieved to see a clean, comfortable room with the bed made.
“Thank you,” she says. “This looks very comfortable.”
I’m about to show her around a little more when my communicator rings. It’s Sarizor. I pause before answering, wary of what he might have to say.
“Sarizor. What is it?”
“We need to talk. Meet me at the shop.”
I wince. That’s what I was afraid he was going to say. It must be related to tonight’s events. “I’ll be right over,” I tell him, pocketing my communicator.
I can’t stop thinking about Melyta as I drive to Sarizor’s candy shop, a common meeting place. I’m already thinking about her too much. Maybe once she’s off the planet, I can go back to normal.
As if.
It’s just Sarizor and his bodyguards inside the shop. He glowers as he sees me, a thin, wiry old man with a face that looks like it was poorly chiseled out of a pockmarked stone.
“My son was attacked tonight,” he growls.
“What?” I reply quickly, trying to imbue shock into my voice. “I—”
“My son!”Sarizor screams. “Gurtion fucking Dultaz! They ran him over with a car. Now he’s in critical care.”
I fake a furious snarl. “Who did it? We’ll fucking kill them.”
“I don’t know yet,” says the mob boss, enunciating every word with a fury I’ve never seen in him before. “But whoever it was, they’re not just going to die. They’re going to die slowly. They’re going to experience a thousand times the pain my son is in right now.”
“Gurtion. Will he live?”
Sarizor’s shoulders slump, and for a moment he almost looks defeated. “He’s clinging to life. The doctors say it could go either way. He has a lot of broken bones.”
I gulp. “My thoughts will be with him tonight. What about the others?”
He gives me a confused look. “Others?”
I realize that Sarizor hasn’t actually mentioned the other vostrata who were involved in tonight’s attack. A good reminder that I need to be more careful.
“I heard Gurt was with a crew tonight.”
Sarizor nods. “Oh. Dead, most of them. Dead or dying.” He says it like it’s an afterthought.
“We’ll find who did this,” I assure him. “We’ll find whoever hurt your son.”
“You’ll find them,” responds Sarizor sharply. “I’m putting you in charge of this. This is your new number one priority. Above everything else. You’re going to track down whoever did this, and you’re going to bring them to me so I can hurt them.”
“Consider it done,” I say resolutely. “I’ll start looking right away.”
His furious eyes gleam with approval. “There’s a girl. A waitress. You’ll need to start with her.”
“A waitress? What does a waitress have to do with this?”
“Gurtion was looking for her. It’s what he was doing tonight. Apparently she disrespected him.”
“But you don’t think that has anything to do with—”
“It has everything to do with this!” Sarizor roars. “Gurtion goes to find this woman in the dead of night, and then just happens to get run over by a car? That’s not a fucking coincidence. She’s involved. She’s working with one of the other Families. Or with the human mob. Or fucking something. But you’re going to find Melyta Bartryz. And you’re going to bring her to me. By any means necessary.”
