of silky skin against his knuckles had fired his blood. A slight break in protocol. Still, he got it. The crisscross of his rope against all that starlit flesh was a nice visual.
Next to the scrape of the ropes between his palms, the look of his intricate knots across skin was his favorite thing. Both beautiful and terrifying. A legacy he couldn’t escape.
It was a good reminder, too. Evil needed to be dealt with, monsters eradicated, and he’d been molded from his youth to do just that.
He straddled his target’s hips.
She snarled, those small fangs peeking out from her lush upper lip.
“I wouldn’t.” He patted the dagger strapped to his thigh. “Bite me again and I’ll remove those pretty canines permanently.”
She flinched.
He gripped the rope where it snaked beneath her ribs. “Tell me what I need to know and there’ll be no unnecessary suffering. Otherwise…” He fell into his usual script, lifting her upper body off the dirt and bringing them nose to nose. “You won’t like what happens next.”
Call him sexist, call him a screwed-up product of his childhood, call him one-tenth decent, but whatever the reason, he wasn’t a fan of using beatings and slicing to get what he wanted from female targets—not even a feral, golden-skinned humanoid bitch who traded in slaves and likely deserved it.
But his way of extracting information from the opposite sex was no picnic, either.
He pointed toward the swirling lines snaking up her flat stomach. “Tell me about these symbols.”
The hostile’s lush lips went flat and tight. Not unexpected.
Up close, the golden shapes, even if smudged and blurred, were fascinating. He was pretty sure he’d seen similar symbols carved on the shaft of her glowing spear. Though it had been swinging toward his head at the time, so there hadn’t been a lot of room for design appreciation.
The hands he’d bound had calluses, along with nicks and scars. More proof that despite her delicate looks, the humanoid wasn’t some coddled princess.
“If that’s the way you want to play it, we will. But this is my final nice-guy warning.” He tapped her lower belly. “Last chance.”
She hissed at the contact.
“So be it.” Guiding her back to the ground, he grabbed the rope between her thighs and tugged upward, the fiction pressing the thin cord against her pussy, hitting her clit like a quick, hard tap. “Rule number one. No shouting.”
Her eyes went wide. Her scream cut off. Shock clear in her iridescent blue eyes.
“Good.” He released some of the pressure, a small reward. It was a relief to know that, though she might look a little different, she was as sensitive as New Earth females in this respect. It would make the interrogation that much smoother.
“Rule number two. You’ll give me your full attention.”
Whatever one thought of his methods, he could almost promise they were far kinder than what Hope and Melody’s mother had suffered.
“You with me?” He flicked the rope so that it rubbed lightly against his captive’s clit, pleased to note he had her entire focus.
Pleasure, when pain was expected, could be an extremely effective controlling tactic. Few could bear the idea of having their bodies turned against them. Another lesson he’d learned personally early on.
“Rule number three,” he let the rope go slack, “you’ll answer my questions or there will be consequences.”
Panting, the hostile stared up at him. Her pointed ears rigid. Her tightening nipples proof that, even after a long stay in the labor mines, his skills in this department were still sharp.
“Now,” he cleared his throat, “be a well-behaved captive and tell me about those symbols.”
Eyes darkening, she opened her mouth.
Strange sound erupted from between her lush lips. Lilting, melodic noises that were pretty, but incomprehensible. Or maybe not totally incomprehensible. They sounded insulting.
He scowled down at her. “Right back at ya, wild thing.”
She only trilled louder. Defiant.
She might look delicate, but there was fire in her gaze. One he’d have to extinguish.
“New English. Speak New English.” He seized the harness between her legs and snapped it against her core, sending blood rushing to the area. Twice. Three times.
She gasped. Moaned.
For a heartbeat, she seemed as surprised as he by the low needy sound. He was an expert at inducing forced pleasure, but even for him, it usually took time to wind a subject up.
This one had gone from zero to sound velocity at laser speed—and the look of confusion on her face was riveting. Almost as if she had no clue what was happening to her body.
He shoved