The Alien's Leash Read online

  Tara licked her lips. She could almost taste the food. Perhaps she could sneak just a little of it. The woman had put the bag in the pocket nearest to Tara, and now she was almost deliberately looking away. It was the closest thing to an invitation she could possibly get.

  Rather than lean across the space between the seats, Tara got up and took the empty seat behind the woman. There was a quiet murmur of something like irritation from the other passengers. Apparently it was not proper to switch seats. Tara didn’t care. She was now behind the woman and the pocket with the food in it was right in front of her. All she had to do was slide her hand forward and slip her fingers into the little space. They found their target and a moment later she had the food in her mouth.

  “Mmmm!” she moaned aloud, drawing disgruntled looks from several of the other people. It tasted better than she could have imagined. It was sweet and it was rich and it filled her mouth with flavor that made her want more. “So good!”

  There was another disgruntled rustling around her. The sound of her voice seemed to be causing the others concern, though she did not know why. Perhaps she should have been more cautious, but food as good as this demanded some kind of expression.

  Tara wanted more. Had to have more. She slipped her fingers forward once more, but this time she did not receive a delicious treat. This time the woman felt the movement and let out a sharp scream.

  “Oh, my! She’s touching me! She’s stealing my things!”

  The rolling whale stopped rolling abruptly as the people went into an uproar. Tara was afraid that they would come for her, but instead they seemed to be utterly desperate to get away. Even the man who controlled the beast’s motion and who had yelled at her when she got on was loath to confront her as his passengers clustered around the doors, clearly afraid of her even though she was so much smaller and so much weaker. Before the woman could flee, Tara grabbed the bag and shoved the contents into her mouth. The chaos was worth the deliciousness.

  After a moment or two of unrestrained panic, the doors of the whale opened and the people ran out, leaving Tara to snuffle through the bottom of the bag. There were a few flecks of good tastiness left, and she was determined to get every single one of them on her tongue before someone inevitably stopped her. She was still nose deep in the treat bag when someone stepped into the rolling whale. Someone who wasn’t afraid of her in the slightest.

  “Tara!” Her name was snapped angrily through the air.

  Tara looked over the lip of the bag and saw two very annoyed blue eyes looking back at her. It was him. Kyren. He had changed since she last saw him and was certainly dressed far more finely than any of the people who had fled, wearing a long navy coat edged with bright gold patterns and dark boots that ran the length of his shin all the way to his knees. They emphasized just how long his legs were, and just how tall he was. He had to stoop to step inside the rolling whale.

  “Tara,” he growled her name again. “Come here.”

  Tara stared straight ahead and pretended she wasn’t Tara. It didn’t work very well. Kyren strode forward and grabbed her by the forearm, his large hand closing around her slim limb. He leaned down, his teeth flashing near her ear.

  “Do not make any more of a scene than you already have,” he growled. “You are in more danger than you understand. The authorities have already been summoned.”

  She didn’t know who the authorities were, but Kyren seemed worried about them. She allowed herself to be pulled from her seat, taken from the rolling whale, and put into something much smaller but similar in concept. A rolling cow, maybe. It had only four seats instead of dozens, but there was still a man behind the wheel. Kyren pushed her into the back of the contraption and got in beside her.

  “You have been a very bad pet,” he growled before tapping the man in the front on the shoulder. “Let’s get home, and swiftly,” he said. “Do not stop for any Authority cars, driver. I will pay the fine myself if need be.”

  The driver nodded and set the rolling cow into motion. It was much faster than the whale had been and the scenery was much more blurred through the windows as they traveled back up the hill they had just come down.

  “You,” Kyren said. “Are in trouble.”

  Tara was confused by his annoyance. He seemed to expect her to care what he thought. He didn’t understand that she didn’t owe him anything. He was a stranger who claimed to own her. She didn’t have to do what he said. Her only allegiance was to herself and her freedom.

  “Smart though,” he admitted to her sullen silence. “That was an impressive escape.”

  “Not that impressive,” she said, looking out the window. “I would have gotten away if it was really impressive.”

  “No.”

  “No?” She looked back at him, curious as to what he meant.

  “There’s no getting away, Tara,” he said, his voice low and solemn. “That isn’t how it works.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re wearing a tracker in that collar,” he reminded her. “And it’s damn fortunate that you are. If the authorities ever found that I’d let an unregistered, unaccompanied, un-quarantined pet out into public, I’d be heavily fined and you’d be taken away. There is a destruction order placed on all unregistered exotics thanks to some idiot a few years ago taking his carnivorous elequads for a walk. They ended up eating three ladies and a postman. Laws were made.”

  “I’m not an elequad, whatever that is,” she argued, defending herself. If he was going to growl at her, then she was going to growl right back. “People didn’t even know I wasn’t a people like them.”

  “That’s not the point, Tara. Where were you going? What were you going to do?”

  “I was going away! I was going to go back home. If there are ships that can take me here, there are ships that can take me back. I was going to find one of them.”

  “No,” he said heavily. “There is no away. There is no back. There is no home.”

  His words made Tara go cold inside. She had seen Kyren as a somewhat kind captor. He had been much nicer than the men who took her at first. He had spoken to her softly. He had touched her in ways that felt good, but then he had locked her in a room and when she’d escaped from that, he had hunted her down and now he was talking in a way that left no doubt that he was not as kind as he had seemed.

  “I hate you,” she said. “I hate everything about you. And I am going to get back home.”

  “Is that right.” He smirked at her in that condescending way he had. He looked at her as if she didn’t know anything. As if she couldn’t possibly outsmart him—even though she had just escaped his big palace of a house, with all his technology and all his guards.

  He thought she was stupid, like an animal. What he didn’t understand was that though her life on Earth had been simple, she was used to using every resource available to her. A woman was not strong, so she had to be smart. Hunting. Gathering. Navigating a wild world where there were predators of all kinds, where injury meant death. He thought she was too stupid to survive in his world. He didn’t know how wrong he was.

  The tension Kyren was carrying in every line of his body faded as they returned to his grand home. He seemed relieved to have her back in captivity. He hustled her back into the house, into the grand bedroom that smelled of musk and man. She noticed that it was in disarray, drawers pulled open, blankets thrown all over the place, doors of every kind opened. The scene made her smirk. He must have been so shocked when he discovered she was gone.

  “Take that uniform off,” he snapped at her. “You’re swimming in it.”

  “I’m not sorry for running away,” she informed him, crossing her arms over her chest. She didn’t like the clothes, they were far too long and got in the way of free movement, but they also provided her with some kind of barrier and she wanted to keep them on for the moment.

  “I know you’re not sorry. You will be.”

  “I’m not taking this off.”

  “Then I will ta
ke it off for you,” he growled, reaching for her. He caught her before she could dart away, and once he had her in his grasp, he did not so much take the uniform off as tear it off. The seams of the dress tore under his large hand as he bared her roughly, ripping the dress apart until she was entirely naked before him.

  Certain she was about to be punished hard, Tara bit him. She bit him hard and more than once. She bit everything she could reach. His hands, his forearms, his coat—the latter was the least satisfying of the three targets. Kyren acted as though it didn’t hurt, though she could see the marks her teeth left with every snapping bite.

  “I warned you,” he growled, pulling a strip off the uniform. He wound it around her head and mouth, making further biting impossible. “I warned you not to bite me again.”

  She was naked now, totally vulnerable as he pulled her over his thighs. Tara swore impotently as his hand came down on her bare butt and she let out a loud yowl as the slap burst through her system, alerting her finely tuned survival instincts that there was pain and there would be more pain to come.

  It was impossible to escape Kyren’s grasp by struggling. He was infinitely stronger than she was and he had a talent for grasping her in such a way that she couldn’t struggle properly anyway. As the slaps continued to land, making her bottom blaze like the red-hot coals of a fire, and her struggles continued to get her nowhere, Tara decided to change her response. She knew well enough that fighting wasn’t always the way to handle a problem. If confronted with a dangerous cat, it was better to freeze. So she froze over his lap, stilling her reactions so that even when his hand landed she didn’t move a muscle or make a sound.

  After slapping her bottom a few more times and getting that total lack of response, Kyren pulled the gag out of her mouth.

  “What are you doing, brat?”

  Of course, she didn’t answer him.

  “I see,” he said. “Well, Tara, defiance is still defiance whether it is biting or silence. You will speak when you are spoken to and you will stop these games.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  He spanked her bottom sharply. “The more defiant you are, the more punishment you will receive.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I think I can make you care,” he said, drawing his hand down her bottom. He clamped his fingers on her left cheek and spread it, pressing his digits to her bottom hole. “You were so sensitive here earlier,” he mused. “Could this be the key to your obedience?”

  Tara tried to hide her reaction, the way every muscle low in her belly, bottom, and upper thighs contracted at his touch. Her anus was so sensitive. Even the lightest touch sent sensations shooting through her body. Kyren began to tap her there, relatively soft taps, but hard enough to make her jolt over his thigh.

  “I can punish any part of you, pet,” he growled down at her. “There is no winning when you decide to fight me.” He pushed his finger harder against her bottom, making the ring of muscle give way. “I can take any part of you too.”

  She didn’t understand what he was saying, not at first, not until she felt the hard ridge of his manhood pressing against her thigh through his pants. Tara realized then that Kyren was turned on, not just by punishing her, but by her resistance.

  “You’re mean!”

  “Mhm.” Kyren let out a chuckle. “I can be, pet. I can be mean in ways that will make you regret your disobedience. And I can be mean in ways that will make you come harder than you ever knew you could.”

  His finger performed a slow swirl around her anus, teasing the sensitive little bud in a way that made her let out trembling little gasps and grab at his leg. She didn’t know if it was supposed to feel good—she was almost certain that it wasn’t. But it did.

  The finger moved away and the spanking started again. It didn’t seem to be nearly as hard this time, or maybe it was but the tingling in her pussy was enough to distract her from the worst of the sting. Whatever was causing the difference in sensation, she was grateful for it.

  “I require your obedience, pet. It might not seem fair. It isn’t fair, but I require it anyway.”

  His words were beginning to melt into the slaps. Everything was starting to be one thing, one hot, squirmy, hard thing that she was falling into and being consumed by. She wasn’t sure of anything besides the heat in her bottom, the swelling of her cheeks and her sex, the moisture gathering between her lower lips.

  He had set out to punish her, but instead she was floating toward climax. She felt more than a little triumph at the realization, thinking she had fooled him again. Just as she thought she was going to come, his palm landed not on her reddened cheeks, but the backs of her thighs. The sudden flare lower still made her curse and growl at him again.

  “Stop it! Damn you!”

  “I will not,” he said sternly. “I will do this until you learn your lesson.”

  “What’s the lesson? That you’ll beat me if you get angry?”

  “That you don’t run away.”

  “I’m supposed to run away!”

  He stopped and looked down at her, leaving her bottom and thighs burning with the slaps already landed. “What do you mean?”

  “I was taken,” she sniffed. “I’m a prisoner. Prisoners are supposed to try to escape.”

  She thought for sure he would keep thrashing her, but instead he picked her up and sat her on his knee.

  “Look at me, Tara.”

  When she did not obey, he put a gentle finger under her chin and turned her head toward him so she was captured by those bright blue eyes that in that moment, seemed so very kind and warm she could hardly reconcile them belonging to the man she needed to hate.

  “You’re a prisoner, from your perspective,” he acknowledged. “With me, you wear a collar. Your movements are restricted. Your behavior is controlled. If you were back on Earth, you’d be free. You’re twenty years old, Tara. You’d have maybe ten years left if you were on Earth. Here, you have another fifty or more years of life to look forward to.”

  “I’m going to live until seventy?” Tara laughed. “You’re a liar.”

  “I’m not. Here you’ll be receiving a level of care which will mean you’ll get more than twice the length life you’d have where you came from. If you get a virus or an infection, it can be treated. If you break a limb, or twist an ankle, you won’t be crippled for the rest of your life. It can be fixed. I know you feel like a prisoner. But you’re much more than a prisoner, Tara. If you stop trying to run away for a few minutes, you might be able to understand that.”

  There was something very different happening now. He wasn’t just punishing her for being a naughty little pet. He was also talking to her like a creature of intelligence.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said, saying the words more because they were the first things to come to mind than any considered response.

  “I am forty years old, Tara,” he said. “Do I seem that old to you?”

  “Liar!” There was no way he could be forty years old. All the forty-year-olds she knew were marked by the sun, wrinkled, and missing most of their teeth. They were scarred and were usually very ill. Kyren was strong and in the prime of health.

  “It is true, Tara. My species ages more slowly than yours, but more than that, I have always had good food and good medical care. I have had shelter from the elements. You will have the same with me. You will live a very long and happy life here.”

  “I’m not happy now,” she said, squirming on her sore bottom.

  “Well, no,” he agreed. “Because you’ve been punished. But if you behave yourself, there won’t be punishment. There will be reward.”

  She looked at him suspiciously. “What kind of reward?”

  “You will receive many rewards, pet. But I think the one you will enjoy the most is physical pleasure.” His hand slid over her thigh and cupped her pussy, covering her lower lips gently. His fingers spread her lips a little, teasing her with a touch that made her squirm her hot bottom against his thighs
.

  “This feels good, doesn’t it?”

  “Mhm.” She bit her lower lip and ground her hips to press her sex against his hand.

  Kyren kept playing with her sex, stroking her lips gently, lulling her into a state she was not familiar with. Her entire body was fizzing with a tight excitement that made her want to spread her thighs and grind her hips.

  “I shouldn’t be rewarding you for trying to escape,” he murmured. “I should be spanking you until your bottom is bright red and your words are full of apologies. If you ever do something as reckless as leaving the house without my permission, if you disobey me, you will be one very sore, sorry pet.”

  His lecture was probably supposed to make her feel naughty—and it did, but more than that it made her pussy quiver with excitement. Against all odds, it felt good to be chastised. Back home, she had looked after herself. Nobody cared if she went out into the woods by herself. Nobody worried about her at all. The villagers liked the proceeds of her hunt, of course, but she never had the sense of being taken care of. Kyren’s form of care was intense, but it was speaking to a need she’d buried deep since her mother had died and she had begun fending for herself as a teenager.

  Kyren’s threats were supposed to be warnings of how to behave, but he was making her feel very cared for too. She spread her thighs wider and pressed herself back against his fingers, pushing her pussy onto the hard digits.

  “Do you understand me, pet?”

  She answered his question with a soft moan and a gyration of her hips. She understood him, but did he understand her? Did he know what she needed?

  His hand met her bottom in a stinging slap, which, like his words, was subverted by her needy body. The heat met with the arousal already making her nethers melt and her pussy clench around his fingers. He spanked her again, and the result was the same, another gasp, another spasm of the tight muscles working her pussy against his hard flesh.