The male was practically begging for it.

  Biting down on her lower lip, Quinn pressed the access panel, the door slipped open, and she swallowed the accumulating taste of blood. It was dim the instant the portal shut and locked behind her, but he was there. She could smell him, the scent of running water, of cooling things.

  From the shadows came approval. “I am pleased you have not tried to run.”

  She’d never heard his voice in person, only sound bites from training days of the male barking orders or outlining reports... the noises he’d made when fucking supplied females. There was a pleasing quality to it which belied the ferocity of the monster—a voice designed to charm and coerce like a dancing serpent drawing one nearer so he might fill you with venom.

  Turning up the lights, she found him standing proudly, posing for her at attention, unsmiling but radiating satisfaction. Like the others of his kind he was unfailingly beautiful—part of the lure that made them so dangerous in so many ways. Black hair had grown long since she’d last seen him, tucked behind his ears and waving to his jaw. He also bore the shadow of stubble, more casual than the commanding clean-cut necessity of a dead nation’s perfect created soldier.

  Quinn’s false colored eyes lingered over the contours of his face, explored the column of his structural weak point—his throat.

  Sovereign took a step nearer, Quinn countering verbally. “It would be in your best interest to keep your distance. Otherwise you may find how very difficult it is for me to control the urge to butcher you.”

  “Sigil,” he sung her name, eyes a perfect storm, taking her in as if he’d been starved for the sight.

  She hated that designation. Showing teeth she hissed, “My name is Quinn.”

  “Your name,” he explained imperiously, stepping nearer, “is Sigil. The title far more than the project for which you were fashioned. It’s what you are: inscribed genetics, a creation of perfection.”

  “Perfection?” she gave an unimpressed snort. “That is exactly how I should appear to you.” Eyeing him as if he were a fool, Quinn sneered. “The shade of my skin in line with your preference, each curve of my body designed to mimic the females you took the most pleasure in. Everything from the size of my breasts to the natural color of my hair and eyes, all created to draw you in, making it much easier for me to assassinate you, had Commander Demetri felt the need to unleash me on a programmed slave soldier who’d grown too autonomous.” Her chin lowered to her chest. “So why do you tempt me to do what long dead men and a depraved, horrible society desired?”

  “I can see the sparks between your fingers—the automatic buildup of psionic energy precursing attack.” He took another step closer and asked, “Are you struggling for control?”

  “Yes.” Her fists tightened until the bones in her fingers popped. The psionics drained away, and Quinn made the offer of her life, “You would do well to end this now before I slip and punish you for hounding me.”

  “And how would you punish me?” The weight of his gaze, the curiosity he did not hide, seemed backward. As if he the wolf and she the sheep.

  Her shoulder blades met the corroded wall. “You have pretty eyes. Maybe I will collect one.”

  The man nodded, his presence commanding far too much space. “Then come nearer, Sigil.”

  Something about his tone... was wrong.

  He advanced until standing before her, tall, broad, looking down at her upturned face as if it were his due.

  Practically humming with the need to break the bones in his neck, Quinn’s hand moved on its own, reaching for his throat. Sovereign allowed it, even lifting his chin to give her better access. Her fingers wrapped around warm skin where all she had to do was squeeze and she could crush his windpipe. Or better yet, dig her nail right into the lovely pulsing artery under her thumb and tear out a handful of flesh.

  A sensation of pleasure flooded her body, her thumbnail digging in.

  Ignoring the threat, Sovereign fingered her slave collar. “I absolutely abhor seeing this around your neck, precious Sigil. Whatever game you have been playing that requires a collar, it’s over now.”

  Insulted at his use of an endearment, the hand Sigil had wrapped so beautifully around Sovereign’s throat tightened. Eager to watch him choke, anticipating the beauty of Sovereign forced to kneel before her, Quinn envisioned plucking out one of his unimaginable eyes and crushing it to jelly—or maybe eating it, swallowing down a piece of him while he watched.

  The fantasy blossomed, made her smile, and she slipped further into the haze.

  Sovereign slowly wrapped his fingers around her wrist. Applying a strength he should not have possessed, he forced her grip from his throat, shocking her out of her fantasy. Quinn, gasping, struggling unsuccessfully to regain the limb he’d claimed, earned only a tick in his jaw. Sovereign maintained his hold.

  She’d been created to be better than him—superior. But she could not move her arm.

  Sovereign pressed his greater mass forward, trapping her against the wall.

  “Program Cataclysm, the classified creation of genetically perfected humanoid soldiers, assassins, infiltrators, decimators. I was created to lead that army.” The bastard lectured her, unsmiling features intense as he kept Quinn restrained. “In the decades before your birth, under the orders of Commander Demetri, your brothers conquered colonies, neighboring planets, whole systems—any civilization that stood in the path of the Alliance so effectively the foolish humans began to realize just how superior their creations really were. Leadership began to question why every prevailing galactic society had made genetic genesis taboo. Furthermore, had the other species learned humans had experimented on their own kind, mutilated their coding, stolen their uniqueness in the creation of superior human slaves it would have started an intergalactic war. The humans would have been eradicated, as they were still weak, constantly feuding amongst themselves, lacked the best technology, and were only recently evolved to the age of hyperspace travel.”

  “You are not telling me anything I don’t already know.” Quinn braced her foot pressing against the wall for leverage, only to have Sovereign’s thigh bat it aside and pin the appendage.

  “I altered your original coding myself,” Sovereign ensnared both of her wrists in one hand and yanked her chin up, forcing the squirming woman to meet his eyes, “secretly and at great risk to the entirety of our kind, no one but me knowing the time bomb I placed inside you. I had to hide it carefully, as you were so very precious and their reason for creating you so nefarious. Had the Alliance a hint, you would have been destroyed before you were old enough to defend yourself.”

  Quinn stilled, her muscles limp as disgust bloomed on her face. “Time bomb? You did that to me? Unhinged the psionic restraint? Do you have any idea what happens when I lose control?”

  “You were never designed to have psionic abilities. While you were still in gestation, I gave you my genetic markers, placing a part of myself inside your very DNA. But your skill manifested far more aggressively and at a much earlier age than anticipated. You were only a child when you brought down the compound in a rage.”

  Her brows drew tight. “They were hurting my mother.”

  The tip of his finger followed her jaw, Sovereign confused by such a statement. “That creature only served as the vessel you were grown in. You shared no genetics with it.”

  Pounding her skull against the wall to get his touch off her skin, Quinn snarled, “I know what she was! I could hear her. The creature, as you call her, was aware of EVERYTHING. She was aware of me!”

  The expression fell from the looming male’s face, his eyes growing dark, calculating, as understanding dawned. “You’re an empath. That is how you sensed our proximity, how you evade. But it should not be possible. I know your coding by heart; you have very little Kilactarin DNA. Not enough for such a gift to foster and for you to still maintain the appearance of a human.”

  Violet eyes began to dilate, focused obsessively on the pulse of his carotid artery and the single drip of blood frozen on his neck. Sucking her lower lip into her mouth, Quinn imagined the taste should she stretch a bit higher and use her teeth to rip open that throat. “You are the reason I struggle. If I were to kill you it would be over, and your foolish little empire of sheep, the way you eat up the universe, would end.”

  Sculpted lips in an archangel’s face curved into a very hungry smile. “Sheep?”

  Swallowing, Quinn muttered, “You became free when I tore Condor to pieces, and what have you done with your liberation? Behaved exactly as you were designed—engaging in endless campaigns to conquer human worlds. You’re still slaves to your programing. Sheep.”

  He pressed nearer, enjoying the way her eyelids dropped at the contact. Brushing his lips to her ear, feeling her tongue drag over the drop of his blood he’d spilt to tempt her, Sovereign groaned. “You know nothing of what you are. The indoctrination of your handlers, it confused you... lost lamb.”

  At the sweet coppery taste, addiction sucked her deeper. Lips parted, forming words against his throat as if each one gave her pleasure. “You should run. But I will chase you, I will catch you, and you will die.”

  Sovereign’s composed calculation returned. An authoritative, chilling voice chided, “I have seen the aftermath when you lose control, precious Sigil—Condor, the prison colony on the moon of Vector, the rotting fleet lingering in the Durazgabi system.” He avowed, “I will not allow it again.”

  “Allow?” He thought to command her? No one commanded her. No one was stronger, not even massive Que. A snap and furious psionics began to accumulate, little lines of energy jumping from her skin into the fool who thought to corner her, who’d had his chance to end it all yet wasted time speaking nonsense. Dyed lavender eyes sharpened. Quinn loudly cracked her neck and forced the larger opponent away with such pleasing strength. “Allow me, sheep?”

  A very male, very pleased growl filled the air when she broke his hold.

  Already imagining the music of Sovereign’s bones snapping, saturating herself in the compulsion, she twisted about in the limbs of a born soldier. It was not hard to strike him; her speed superior, each blow incredibly fulfilling as she toyed with her food. They were in a tangle of movements, their styles of aggression vastly different. Where Sovereign was elegant, she was unpolished, rough, and brutal. One kick and she’d shattered her table; a dodged punch dented the wall. The more damage she created, the greater her need to annihilate grew. Between them the room fell into shambles, furniture breaking, treasured baubles falling, crushed underfoot.

  It wasn’t long before Quinn had him on his back, his larger body under her control. Braced over Sovereign, practically drooling, she licked her lips and moved to snatch his pretty eye straight from his pretty skull.

  She struck. Everything went wrong.

  There was pain and a blur as her center of gravity shifted. The grate floor cut into her cheek, her chest, her thigh, Sovereign pinning her belly down. Tossing back an elbow, she struck his ribs, the man hardly grunting as his teeth grazed the nape of her neck. He bit down so hard she startled, a shock of energy snapping through her system.

  Gasping at the feeling of the bones in her neck shifting, Quinn found she couldn’t move, only stare in horror as he crunched harder and another burst of feeling stunned her to momentary stillness.

  Crying out, fighting like a wild thing, no matter how she tried Sovereign had her, brutally biting the same place each time she grew too frantic. Exhaustion, the need to regroup, another sharp bite, and she yielded.

  He released his jaw once she began to tremble.

  “Shhhhhh,” Sovereign hushed, stroking her body with the weight of his. “You do not need to be afraid.”

  There was a slithering brush of probing fingers between her closed thighs. He gripped the black leather of her small covering and tore it away. Quinn immediately grew frantic, screaming outrage, and the teeth returned.

  Again she was forced into unnatural immobility.

  A long lick over the bloody skin of her neck drew out her shiver and the haunting rumble of approval from the male, “It’s time for you to submit to your consort.”

  Unsure how he managed to hold her down yet still slip the tips of his fingers up to trace her pussy, the woman hissed, bristling at his reverberating growl when Sovereign found her clit engorged.

  “You are aroused for me.” With those final words he forced his fingers into a slippery cunt that spasmed and squeezed at the intrusion.

  Confused, fighting an unsettling urge to press back against thrusting digits, Quinn struggled for breath. “Stop.”

  Those unwelcome fingers found her piercing, tugging and playing with it, creating shrill bursts of friction along her nerves each time the metal glided across the sensitive nub of flesh. Shrieking, she tried to shift again.

  “Surrender,” Sovereign spoke as if licking her blood from his lips, “or I will be forced to impose submission the entire time I fuck you.”

  “Get off—” She gave out a grunt, her words lost in her throat once his bite reestablished. She felt his hand leave her and work the fastenings of his clothes. Before she could overcome the momentary listlessness, an unwelcome girth breached. His penetration pushed forward mercilessly until the bastard was fully sheathed. Balls deep, Sovereign offered an extended groan so obscene her body responded, gripping tight around the intrusion, wetting him further.

  Warm breath tickled over her ear. “Perfect.”

  When he began to thrust, Quinn struggled, gaining nothing. His answer was to display further aggression, grinding her painfully into the grate floor, growling each time he manipulated her reaction until her cunt seeped and her insides tried to pull him in.

  Smashed under the onslaught of remorseless pounding hips, Quinn wriggled, hissed, her noises twisting into calls that shamed her. Each time she keened at the fingers playing with her piercing and the fullness of his cock, he praised her—licking the bite wounds, moving with the speed and ferocity of a male giving what a raging female desired.

  A teetering climax, one she had been holding back from the first intrusion, became a nightmarish thing. The leaking psionics, the fear of herself, brought her to whine, “Please.”

  “Yes, Sigil.” Sovereign surged, fucking in so hard she grunted. “Beg me for more.”

  Saturated in stimulus, panting, pleading for a thing partway between mercy and annihilation, she screamed, “Please,” choked on the word, and climaxed so hard the world went black.

  Behind her Sovereign’s jaw unhinged, the man roaring as he came. He bit her neck one final time, erratically thrusting those last messy plunges.

  A long low whimper—half panicked and half gratified—hummed past parted lips once she felt him gush, Sovereign filling her to the brim, pressed tight to cork every drop of splashing ejaculate spilled in her tender passage.

  Scraped raw, confused, the back of her neck a pulsing mush of torn bleeding flesh, Quinn began to softly weep.

  “Oh, Sigil,” Sovereign slid his lips over her ear. “It had to happen this way. Can you not already feel me working inside you, undoing the damage? Does it not satisfy to be mounted by your own kind? Every time we mate you’ll know completion, you’ll chemically recognize your place, until you are healed of the poison they inflicted on you to punish me.”

  Ashamed the enemy was witnessing her weakness, Quinn turned her face away, pressing it to where her scraped cheek’s blood stained the floor. He had played with her as a cat plays with a mouse, all the time the plan of fucking her his endgame. She’d lost, he’d shamed her, and even in the moment she could feel his come inside her womb so hot it seemed unnatural.

  She tried to shift her hips away from the thick plug still pulsing inside her.

  “Hold it all, precious one,” Sovereign warned, gripping her tightly. “Hold every drop I gave you. Your body must absorb and recognize my mark to break your compulsion.”

  She was in shock, Quinn recognized dimly—shivering, hyperventilating, and afraid of the monster on her back.

  “Please…” the word was a long entreating sob for freedom.

  “You are beautiful, even when you cry.” A thumb wiped the rivers on her cheek before a large hand slipped under her skull to cradle it so her bleeding face no longer dug into the abrasive floor. “It pains me our first coupling has upset you.” His thumb brushed her lips like a kiss. “In time you will learn you need not fear me.”

  But she was terrified. Everything she knew about herself contradicting, distorted. More tears began to flow; Quinn bawled, teeth chattering, the bastard’s encouragements only upsetting her more. When she squirmed, body going numb from the pressure of the grate and the burdensome weight of the man, his organ pulsed back to life.

  She froze, petrified of her body’s reaction, of the blood she could feel pumping to engorge her sex further, of the slippery offered fluid which eased his passage and enticed further fucking.

  Sovereign thrust gently, Quinn’s hiccupping sobs twisting into soul wrenching whimpers at the decadent swirl of hips and softer scrape of teeth along her spine. He held her down as he had the first time, though she did not fight him—the second claiming infinitely tender, debilitating. A callused hand stroked to erase the horror, to foster nonexistent comfort. With her eyes screwed shut, her head resting in his palm, Quinn lost the final trace of bloodlust that anchored her, swept up and adrift.

  Praise was lavished upon her for submission, a tongue tracing the shape of her ear when she arched her pelvis encouraging him to rut. She came screaming the name of her oldest enemy, her body greedily draining him of seed—no orgasm in her history as obliterating, as gratifying, as those desolate moments under Sovereign.

  A throbbing cock emptied, splashing more fluid against her womb. With labored breath he commanded, “Sleep.”

  The effect was almost instant, and before she could reflect on why, she obeyed.

  Chapter 5

  The shock of waking set Quinn’s heart pumping, thuds of rushing blood drowning out sound. Panic was a thing so long forgotten she hardly understood the sensation. Sucking in a shaky breath, she registered that no male weighed her down. The grate floor wasn’t cutting into her skin, Sovereign’s callused hands were not stroking her as if they were familiar.