The Hunter's Pet Read online

  “I told you,” he said, rising to his feet. “You’ll only hurt yourself if you misbehave.”

  “Let me go!” She shrieked the words, clasping at her arm with her hand. The arm must have been exposed to the field for a second or more. It probably hurt like hell, might even have been burned.

  “I need to attend to that arm,” he said. “Come on. I have something that will soothe the pain.”

  He strode into his home, past the expensive furniture and unique works of art, through to the bathing chamber. He did not look over his shoulder to see if she followed, he simply acted as though she would. There could be no hesitation in dealing with a wildling. They were instinctive people; they sensed weakness, insecurity, and doubt within seconds and immediately took advantage.

  Entering the bathing chamber, William retrieved a solar cream from the cabinet and turned, expecting to find his pet there. She was, glaring at him balefully.

  “Sit down,” he said. “This takes a few minutes to work. It smells bad too and you’ll feel some tingling, but it will heal that burn in five minutes.”

  “I hate you.”

  “Give me your arm.”

  He ignored her hate, her anger, her fear. None of those impulses would be rewarded with attention. When she failed to extend the limb, he took her by the hand and began slathering the cream over her skin. The effect was fairly instantaneous. He felt her relax as the pain abated. She was still angry and afraid; those emotions could not be soothed with salve, or any other topical treatment. Only time would make those abate.

  It had not escaped his attention that she was slightly under the weather. There was a flush to her skin that could not entirely be attributed to anger, but it would be difficult to take her temperature given that she’d probably bite the thermometer. He could try the other end of her body, he supposed, but she would not much like that either.

  “How long have you been sick?”

  “I’m not sick.”

  “You’re sick or scared. Probably both.”

  “I’m not scared of you.” She snarled the words with an intensity that would have been scary if it weren’t coming out of a fever-soaked scrap of a woman. She had gone downhill quickly since being put in the crate, no doubt a result of the stress of being captured. One had to be careful with wildlings; as much as they needed firm handling, they also needed to be kept quiet for the first few weeks of their captivity. Too much stress and they could perhaps perish from the latent ailments that were part and parcel of living wild. Fortunately, fever was not all that dangerous in the city. It was common enough amongst hunter pets, especially when they were first brought in.

  William had the necessary medication on hand, of course. The only problem was it tasted awful, and judging by the demeanor of his prize, she was unlikely to take it willingly.

  “I’m going to give you something to bring the fever down. It won’t taste good, but you’ll feel better.”

  “I would rather die than take anything from you,” she replied predictably.

  William retrieved the bottle from the medicine cabinet and poured out a dose into a little clear vessel. “If you do die of this fever, you won’t have the satisfaction of revenge now, will you?”

  He held out the dose and was not at all surprised when she slapped it out of his hand. Reddish brown liquid fell to the floor and pooled in the tiles as he patiently poured out a second dose.

  “This is your last chance to take it,” he explained. “If I have to do this a third time, I’ll make you drink it.”

  He extended the medicine to his captive. This time she slapped it toward him, spattering his clothing with the sticky mess.

  “Right,” he said firmly. “I guess we’ll be doing this the hard way.”

  William poured a third dose and set it aside. Taking his naughty new pet by the waist, he drew her close to his body, her back against his stomach as he secured his grasp around her midsection, clamping her arms to her chest. The other hand then went to her nose, pinching it so she opened her mouth. The plan worked that far, but he soon realized he was missing a third hand with which to actually dose her. Substituting speed for extra appendages, he let go of her body for a moment, grabbed the liquid, and tossed it down her throat before she could fight away.

  The result was less than perfect, but most of the medicine seemed to have been swallowed as she squirmed away from him, cursing up an archaic storm.

  “You’ll thank me when you feel better,” he said, ignoring her fury.

  “You’ve poisoned me!”

  “If I have, I went to an awful lot of trouble to do it,” William said mildly. “Now, bath time.”

  She desperately needed a bath. Maybe she’d had a dip in one of the lakes now and then, but there was grime and body grease coating every inch of her skin. It was a natural protection against parasites, and a warning to predators, but it was entirely out of place in good society.

  “Baths are for the weak!”

  “Baths are for the clean,” William corrected. “You’ll feel better afterward, I promise.”

  “Your promises are lies!”

  She was really into the rebellious swing of things. He could probably have suggested giving her freedom and she would have resisted simply on principle.

  “Do you have a name?”

  The question seemed to take her off guard. She put her anger on hold for a moment and looked at him suspiciously.

  “What would I need with a name?” she asked bitterly. “I’m just your possession, aren’t I?”

  “Even possessions need names,” William replied. “A table by any other name would, well, it would be confusing.”

  Her face screwed up in irritation. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

  “Listen,” William said. “Obviously you’re not a normal wildling. You were obviously educated by someone, at least in the ways of language. So you have a name. I presume you’d prefer I call you by your name?”

  “I’d prefer you took a long walk off a short pier,” she bit back.

  “What’s a pier?”

  Her expression told him that she didn’t know either. A great many of her expressions were archaic; she must have been raised by very old-fashioned parents. Most wildlings lacked her linguistic abilities. They could talk, but they did so simply and without regard for the nuances of language. They certainly didn’t make puns or statements simply because they sounded good.

  His new pet was quite an enigma, a woman caught between worlds, too wild to be a citizen, too civilized to be truly wild. A fascinating, beautiful creature who seemed to loathe him with every bone in her body.

  “I will call you… Gertrude. Or Hortense. How do you feel about Philomena?”

  Her eyes narrowed further with every passing suggested moniker until finally she broke. “My name is Sarah.”

  “Sarah, that’s a good name. An old name.”

  “No older than William,” she replied. She was right. He had been named after his great to the power of a half-dozen grandfather, a man who had made a name for himself by hunting man-eating tigers in India or Pakistan back in the days before they became great hulking irradiated hell beasts.

  “Let’s get you into the bath,” he said, activating the bath and watching as it almost instantly filled with warm clean water that flowed from many dozens of little portals around the rim of the tub. “Best to take your clothes off for this.”

  He braced himself for the coming argument, for which he would not have blamed her. Being naked with a strange man was a vulnerable position for any woman, let alone a freshly caught wildling.

  “You want my clothes off? You want to see me without my clothes?” She tugged at her tunic, pulling it up over her head. Her breasts were instantly exposed, full and round with pink nipples. Her beauty was quite stunning and for a moment his breath caught in his throat. The toned lines of her torso led down to the sweet spot between her thighs where soft green curls grew. William felt his cock harden in response. He was glad he was still
in the camouflage hardened armor that protected every part of his body, including the crotch region. The underside of his cock was thrusting against the codpiece with a vigor that was almost uncomfortable.

  “Very nice,” he said, playing down his arousal. “Now, would you like to get in?”

  “I would not,” she said, mimicking his intonation. Oh, she was a little smart ass. She stood there quite boldly without a care for her nudity, hands on her hips as she looked up at him defiantly.

  “Get in, or I’ll put you in.”

  A little shrug was her only response. She was not going to do as she was told, not for anything, but her naked frame was so distracting he didn’t much mind. If she wanted to be difficult, he could deal with that. Wrapping his arms around her naughty naked body, he picked her up and tried to put her in the bath, but she clung to him so tightly he would have had to go in with her.

  “It’s just warm water, nothing to be afraid of.” He tried coaxing her off, but she clung to his body armor with the strength of a monkey in a tree. Many years of climbing had strengthened her fingers to a point where they could easily sustain her body weight as long as she had a good hold. She further strengthened her resistance by wrapping her legs around his waist.

  “Well, aren’t you affectionate,” he teased.

  She responded by snapping at his nose, just barely missing the flesh. The act earned her a warning pat.

  “Now you settle down, my girl,” he said. “This isn’t going to hurt you one bit.”

  “I don’t care. I’m not going in.”

  *

  Glaring up at her captor, Sarah knew that she did not have anything to fear from a shallow tub of warm water. It was the principle of the thing. She had to retain control over something, and her carefully crafted coating from the world outside the city was the one thing she wanted to keep. Once that was washed away, there would be nothing left.

  William slapped her bare bottom, getting her attention. “You’re going in one way or another,” he said, a tingling that was not entirely unpleasant accompanying his words. His little pats and love taps did not cause any pain, but they did cause strange feelings, both emotional and physical, to course through her body and mind.

  “I’m not going in,” she said, grasping his collar as if it were the only thing between her and death.

  “Are you scared of it? It’s just a little water. It’s warm.”

  “I’m not scared of anything,” she replied boldly.

  His eyes twinkled. “I think you are scared,” he said. “I think you’re worried that once we wash all that dirt away you’re going to be too pretty to be wild.”

  “Stupid,” she said bluntly, hiding the little flash of pleasure she got from hearing him say that she was pretty. He was handsome, of course. He must have known that. Sarah wasn’t sure if she was attractive or not. She had not seen many other women her age. She could have been the plainest thing he had ever set eyes on. His honeyed words could have been nothing more than a manipulation, and yet she still felt happiness at hearing the compliment that was probably not a compliment at all.

  Thoroughly unsure of how to handle herself, Sarah allowed William to slowly unwrap her fingers from his attire and to lower her into the waiting water.

  Once she accepted its inevitability, the bath was nice. Sarah had faint vestigial memories of the last bath she’d had, decades earlier. The scent of the soap brought back memories of being tended to by her mother, washed and wrapped in a warm towel.

  “I can wash myself,” she said as he picked up a bar of soap with clear intent.

  “All the same,” he said patiently. “I’m going to stay with you.” Kneeling next to the tub, he lathered the washcloth and ran it over her shoulders. Thick streaks of dirt went cascading down her back and into the water as he worked the cloth over her skin in a slow massage that felt so wonderful, she quite forgot to hate him.

  “We’re going to have to change the water out once or twice, I think. You’re filthy.”

  It felt so nice to be washed that for a few minutes she set aside her animosity and let the hunter do his work. His touch was tender and careful and he spared no part of her from the attentions of his cloth. From under her arms to beneath her breasts he touched every part of her. She sensed no lechery in his attentions, but there was an undeniable intimacy to the whole affair. The soft sensation of the cloth moving against her body, rubbing away aches and pains she hadn’t known were there left her almost as soft and mushy as the cloth itself.

  The spell was somewhat broken when William pushed a button to let the water drain away, but it was nice when fresh water flowed down the tub walls and covered her all over again. Sarah watched with no small measure of wonder; somewhere in the back of her mind she had always remembered how things were in the city, but it was so long since she’d seen most of them that she’d thought them figments of her imagination. This was real though, crystal clear fresh water clear of any animal droppings or earthy silt and warm to the touch, cascading down around her toes and filling the tub up around her.

  William rubbed soap into a fresh washcloth and handed it to her with a simple instruction. “Clean the parts of yourself you’d rather I not touch.”

  She smirked. He was scared of what her mother had called her ‘privates.’ But there were no such things as privates in the wild. Privates were public and she would not have minded had he washed her there.

  Suddenly, the temptation of holding a sodden wet soapy cloth in her hand was too much. She did not push it down between her thighs, but instead launched it toward his face. The sound it made as it delivered its watery load was very satisfying, as was the way rivulets of soapy liquid trickled down over his neck and body armor, which he had still not taken off.

  “Brat,” he said as water ran down over his stubble and dripped onto the floor. He wiped his face off with one hand. The other caught the cloth before it too could fall and returned it to the water. She watched him, waiting for retaliation. But there didn’t seem to be any. After washing it out again, he pushed the wet soapy cloth between her legs and proceeded to clean her vulva with a firm but gentle touch.

  The sensation was very pleasant. Instinct made her hips grind forward against the cloth, and when that slipped away, against his fingers.

  “This bath is not for your pleasure,” he chided her gently. His words meant little however, for he did not move his hand away. He kept it there between her thighs and rubbed as she wriggled her hips forward. There was no way to obtain real satisfaction there in that slippery surface, but a little reward went a long way toward alleviating the stress she’d been under since her capture.

  “Have you taken a mate before?” The question was asked as his fingertips made swirling motions around the entrance of her body.

  “No,” she said softly. She was struggling with the impulse to mate with this man. He was strong and he was in control and as much as her rational mind hated what he’d done, her animal instinct was running completely contrary. She grasped at his arm, wanting him deeper, wanting him to push inside her.

  “Then I am the first to do this.” He let his fingertip drift inside her, pressing her sensitive inner lips aside as he penetrated her body. The digit slid in an inch, and swirled more. “No hymen,” he murmured. “Is that because you’ve been playing with yourself? Or because no hymen can stand up to the lifestyle of an active wildling for long?”

  Sarah shrugged. She had never penetrated herself, she had only rubbed the bud that sat north of her opening. The tingling sensations resulting from a good strumming there had contented her for many years, but with William’s finger tenderly swirling inside her lips, she realized she may have been depriving herself of a much more satisfying kind of pleasure.

  “There is so much to teach you,” William said, brushing his thumb against her clit.

  Sarah soon realized that arousal dulled her capacity for rebellion, made her soft, perhaps even pliant in his hands. It was dangerous.

  Pushing hi
s hand away took all of her willpower, but she did it. He did not offer any resistance, he even smiled as he slid his hand out from between her thighs. William was maddeningly calm and his patience seemed endless. No matter what she did, he took it in stride. Probably because he did not think of her as anything resembling an equal. No doubt being angry at her would be like being angry at one of the many pieces of furniture in his home.

  Baring her teeth, she snarled.

  He chuckled and ran the cloth down her back and all the way to her bottom, where he wasted no time soaping and cleaning between her cheeks. Her resulting protest was ignored.

  “You know what happens if you bite,” he said, casually rubbing the cloth across her bottom hole. “I warn you too, a spanking hurts a lot worse on a wet behind.”

  “Your punishments mean nothing to me,” Sarah replied, squirming as the soft soapy cloth made gentle circles at her tight bottom hole. The sensation produced was quite unexpected, an arousal that came from being stimulated in a very different way.

  “Mm-hmm.” William drew his hand away, leaving her bereft of the stimulation. He let the cloth drift through the water and moved away. “I think you’re clean enough now,” he said, picking up a great soft length of fabric. “Get out and dry yourself off.”

  “I don’t want to get out.”

  “So contrary,” he chuckled, setting the towel down near the bath. “Get out when you’re ready, then.”

  He left her soaking in the bath, giving her the first privacy she’d had since her capture. Her immediate impulse was to try to climb out the small frosted window, but she knew very well that there were many layers of danger beyond that point. She was also intrigued by her surroundings. She had left civilization so long ago that she’d forgotten what most things were. The toilet was for making water and passing motions; she could remember that much because it was the one thing her mother had often lamented not having out in the wilds. There was comfort to be had in the city, comfort and convenience, but it came at a price. Freedom.