Flame of the Alpha (4 page)

“Very well.”
She bowed at the waist and swept out an arm in the direction of the garden. “You may enter.”

He did, leaving his friends to stare in uncomfortable silence. The captain swept past Sophia and marched toward Dante with single-minded determination. The crowd parted for him, recognizing the stride of a Central Command officer even without the rattle of the plate armor to mark him as such.

Stopping a few inches away from Sophia’s captive, he reached out and cupped Dante’s soft sac in the palm of his hand. Sophia grimaced, but Dante only stared at the man with grim understanding. For a moment, they assessed one another like two warriors meeting on the battlefield.

Then Dante smiled and the spell was broken. He dropped to his knees, dislodging the Captain’s hand from his balls in the process. Despite herself, Sophia exhaled a sigh of relief.

Dante reached around the officer and cupped his firm ass in both hands. “I didn’t know I’d be evaluated by a government official,” he said, his voice low and husky. “Or else I’d have practiced more.”

Captain
Jolen
grunted. His cock stiffened, straining against the planes of his abdomen. “I’m told the carnal arts aren’t as much a skill that can be learned as they are a talent. In any case, Saint Valentine’s pleasure servants are the best in the quadrant.”

Sophia couldn’t stifle the groan that escaped her throat. So he was familiar with their graduates.
Great.
She might as well have signed the death warrant of everyone who lived on Academy grounds.

Dante lowered his head demurely, though not before Sophia caught the glint of feral rage beneath the surface of those limpid green eyes. Her heartbeat kicked up a notch, along with her libido. If he played along, at least they had a chance of convincing this man that Dante was who she said he was. Not a good chance, granted, but a chance nevertheless.

Caressing the Captain’s ass with his broad palms, Dante rubbed his cheek against the man’s outer thigh like the feline he was, his gaze never leaving Sophia’s.

At once, she knew what she had to do. Dante needed her as much as she needed him.

Without a moment’s hesitation, she untied the blue silk sash that kept her robe closed. The material fluttered over her skin like a lover’s caress. With a shrug of her shoulders, it slid down the length of her arms to pool onto the grass.

“It’s a real shame we’ve had to keep Dante hidden for so long,” she said, watching his eyes widen at the sight of her as he drew back. “Someone needs to enjoy his remarkable talents. If we’d sold him sooner, perhaps he wouldn’t have run away.”

Captain
Jolen
tangled his fingers in Dante’s curls, pulling him forward.
“An insubordinate pleasure servant?
You haven’t been doing your job, Head Priestess.”

Sophia’s skin prickled and a wry retort settled on her tongue, but she bit it back, content to hang back and watch.
For now.

“A male servant needs a man’s touch,” the Captain continued, yanking Dante’s head back cruelly so he was forced to look into his eyes. “Only at the hands of another man will he learn the most important thing he needs to know.”

“And what’s that?” Sophia couldn’t help asking.

Captain
Jolen
thrust his hips forward, nudging Dante’s lips with the head of his cock. The bulbous tip disappeared inside Dante’s mouth.
“Obedience.”

Chapter Three

“Harder.” Neo
Jolen
tightened his hold on Dante’s hair, twirling one particularly unruly curl around his thumb and yanking the man’s head closer to his groin.

He ignored the speculative murmurs around him. As a Captain for Earth’s Central Command, his identity was constantly hidden beneath layers of armor, as necessary for his protection as it was for his ability to do his job. Undercover work was sometimes necessary, and being able to blend in with space-faring traders and other nefarious types served a purpose.

But he didn’t always live his life masked by his government uniform. At night, he shed the Central Command ensemble and stepped into another role, one that had nothing to do with protection, but which used his leadership abilities and exhaustive training all the same.

Like many other
Terrans
, Neo hadn’t been created for a dual purpose. His role in society was clear: serve the
Terran
government in all things and protect its interests.
whether
that entailed chasing possible Alpha-carrier suspects or apprehending sexual deviants.

He was damn good at his job. His record was spotless, boasting more arrests than anyone else in the squadron, even though he’d been a part of the C.C. unit for only eleven years. Everything Neo did, he did better than anyone else. Driven and ambitious, he never let anything interfere with his duty.

Although his professions had little in common, he approached both with that same single-minded determination. Until today, the two vocations had never overlapped. Yet a few minutes ago, he’d made a choice.
One that was irrevocable, perhaps even dangerous, but necessary for him to move forward in both lines of work.

With his face freed from the protective helmet, he’d been instantly recognizable to those assembled at the Academy for the annual showing. He’d known a few familiar faces would attend, but he hadn’t expected to encounter so many of his own clients at this gathering.

Impervious to the low gasps and hushed murmurs, he avoided the inquisitive glares and focused entirely on his goal.

“His technique is flawed,” Neo announced, loud enough for his voice to carry through the inner Academy sanctuary.

To his left, Sophia stiffened. “I don’t see how --”

“His swipes are uneven. The pressure on my cock changes as his tongue sweeps from base to tip, and the swirls are awkward.”

Dante glanced up, his green eyes narrowing with something akin to annoyance, but his mouth never stopped working. He circled his tongue around the tip of
Neo’s
shaft slowly in a clockwise motion, concentrating all his attention on the delicate skin behind the head.

Neo hadn’t been lying. The man’s strokes were untutored, wildly different from the expert swipes of a trained pleasure servant, but there was something so raw and rugged in the way his brow furrowed as he poured every ounce of that unbridled fury into the task at hand.

His lips fused to the head of
Neo’s
cock, then slid down to envelop him from tip to base. He pulled up slowly, drawing his tongue over the subtle veins throbbing along the shaft and ended by sucking just the tip, coaxing a bead of
precum
from the slit.

Throughout it all, the man’s eerie gaze held
Neo’s
boldly, as though daring him to continue complaining even as his cock swelled and expanded inside Dante’s mouth.

The unabashed eye contact sent a jolt of lust deep into
Neo’s
balls. He gritted his teeth as a tremor ran down the back of his legs, testing his ability to keep his knees from buckling.

This wasn’t working. Dante didn’t act like a pleasure servant, but if Sophia had been telling the truth -- which Neo still highly doubted -- then it was possible that Dante had been created specifically to be lusciously rebellious, undisciplined, and defiant.

No one knew better than Neo how desperately people wanted a pleasure servant who didn’t obey blindly. One who could give orders, push a patron to her knees and swat her ass with firm, sharp strokes that brought her to the edge of ecstasy with each flare of pain flashing across her buttocks.

But if such a pleasure servant had been created, Neo would be out of a job. Still, the possibility thrilled him to the core. He’d spent years training the Academy’s male graduates to be the dominant specimens so many patrons demanded. He spent months with them trying to undo the damage the Academy’s priestesses had done. Nothing helped much. Oh, the men were able to wield a whip when he was through with them, but the blows they delivered were mere kisses compared to what their masters really craved.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much Neo could do about that. A slave’s subservient nature was part of
who
he was, his DNA specifically crafted to provide a pleasure drone with little ability to resist a patron’s wishes, much less bluntly refuse and turn the tables on his master.

That was exactly why
Neo’s
skills were in such high demand, both as a trainer and as a Dominant himself. Master Neo was a different man than Captain Neo, but his ability to command remained unchanged from one persona to the next.

How ironic, then, that he’d be labeled a sexual deviant by other officers if the government had refused to license his work. He charged for his services, and the
Terran
government received a large percentage of his profit. For that, he had their blessing, but it didn’t mean he was willing to divulge the duality of his personality to his officers.

Until today.
The opportunity with which Dante had presented him had been too good to pass up.

Neo had been eager to infiltrate the grounds of the
Pleasure
Academy
for years, but its mysteries were off-limits to him as a government official, and the priestesses had no need of a Dominant.

He’d spent enough time with pleasure servants to know there were secrets within these hallowed walls, secrets that were forbidden to him. Even the servants in training didn’t know anything more than what they’d heard whispered in darkened corners by priestesses who thought they were alone.

Unfortunately, Neo hadn’t learned much from the pleasure servants.
But there was a wealth of information to be had from a priestess…or if he played his cards right, from the High Priestess herself.

Whatever was going on behind closed doors at the Academy went against everything the
Terran
government believed in. It was
Neo’s
duty to find out what kind of deviant behavior went on inside and bring those involved to justice. If the High Priestess was offering the sexual talents of her priestesses outside the government’s sanctioned service, then she’d be punished like everyone else.

“Stand,” Neo
commanded,
his voice thick with desire.

Shit
. When had that happened? He was the one in control here. He’d been mastering his own sexual impulses long before he’d learned to master the sexual demands of others, and he was damned good at doing both.

Scowling, he pulled back out of Dante’s reach and cupped his saliva-slicked shaft as the man rose to his feet. Sophia went to stand beside him, the back of her hand gliding across Dante’s. The pleasure servant glanced down at her, the fury in his eyes softening for an instant as he inhaled deeply and wrapped his arm around her, pulling her close. She didn’t fight him. For a fraction of a second, she looked as though she might lean against him, but then eased herself out of his arms, shrugging him off.

Odd
.
Actually, the whole thing was fucking bizarre. She still stood too close, as though wanting to reassure the collared slave. And he let her.

Neo’s
nostrils flared. If he hadn’t already been certain that something untoward was happening, witnessing this little moment of intimacy would have served to cement that belief.

What game
was
the High Priestess and her little pet playing? Worse yet -- were they playing
him?

“He failed the first task,” Neo informed Sophia as bitterness rose to the back of his throat. The statement was only partially a lie. Dante’s talent had been unschooled, but the raw, natural emphasis of his tongue gliding across
Neo’s
flesh had nearly made him squirt his cum in the man’s mouth anyway.

They didn’t need to know that. As long as he acted like the authority figure he was, he’d remain in control. And in the process, he’d learn everything he needed to know about the Academy’s surreptitious affairs.

The High Priestess lifted a slender shoulder in a half shrug.
Her breasts, large and tipped with rosy areolas and hard nipples, shifted as she moved, heaving with the rhythm of her shallow breathing.

Oh, yeah. The woman was nervous, all right. Now to push her a little farther over the edge and he’d have her exactly where he wanted her.

Neo’s
cock pulsed, another bead of wetness snaking up to the tip of his shaft. With any luck, he’d have them
both
. The idea of finally training a man who could keep up with his carnal, commanding lessons made his sac swell full and tight against the base of his shaft.

He stilled his strokes, realizing he’d taken over where Dante’s mouth had left off and forced
himself
to drop his hand to his side.

“The second test is much less complicated, though no one but a true pleasure servant will be able to appreciate it.”

Sophia’s spine straightened and she exchanged a silent message with Dante, her eyes speaking volumes even though her mouth didn’t utter a word. She was anxious. More so than Dante, whose easy stance and confident attitude betrayed an inner rage, which only served to intensify
Neo’s
turbulent arousal.

Neo pointed to a nearby bucket and the thick leather handles that stuck up above the rim. Whips lay dormant in water, waiting for a patron to test their potent sting on a pleasure servant’s creamy flesh. “Bring me one of those.”

Dante looked like he was about to argue. His gaze shifted to Sophia, who nodded almost imperceptibly. The man’s gaze dropped to her chest, where it lingered for the span of a heartbeat. His cock stiffened, rising up proudly against his flat stomach.

Doubly interesting
.
Sucking
Neo’s
cock hadn’t been a completely unpleasant act for Dante. His cock had responded as much as could be expected, but the man’s erection raged out of control from one potent glance at Sophia’s full, lush breasts.

Heat pulsed in
Neo’s
groin as he watched Dante’s long, muscular legs stride toward the bucket. The other patrons were busy dallying with a few pleasure servants of their own choosing, but their gazes continued to dart in
Neo’s
direction.

Dante chose a whip and swished it through the air, sending water droplets in every direction. He ran his fingers down the length of the eight-woven switch, his eyes once again locking with
Neo’s
in silent challenge.

“I think you’ll find that our servants are as well trained in the art of receiving pain as you’d expect from any of Saint Valentine’s children,” Sophia said. She fidgeted, her fingers intertwining in front of her stomach, betraying her confident words.

“We’ll see.”

Neo crossed the distance to Dante and yanked the whip from his grip, then grabbed his wrist and led him to the center of the inner sanctuary, where they were in full view of everyone assembled.

Saint Valentine’s
Pleasure
Academy
graduates were valued
for one ability
above all others…that of associating pain with pleasure. The two were almost indistinguishable for a properly trained pleasure servant. The touch of a whip would send exquisite longing into every sensual nerve ending, as would the bite of a switch or the sting of an open palm. It didn’t matter what tool a master chose to use with his or her slave. The result was the same.
Pure, unadulterated lust.

That was one of the reasons Neo had such a difficult time re-training Academy graduates. They wanted to be on the receiving end of the whip and revel in the bliss that came with the anguish of a thorough whipping and the humiliation that was never far behind.

“Kneel,” Neo commanded.
“Over the cushion on that bench.”

He didn’t have to point. There was only one bench where they stood, and it was higher than most, crafted specifically for such a demonstration.

Dante’s tongue snaked out to wet his lips, the gesture more erotic than he’d probably intended. He glanced at the crowd, which had fallen deathly silent to watch the display.

After only a moment’s hesitation, Dante turned his back on those assembled and bent over the cushion, lifting his sculpted ass high in the air. A wave of pure, unadulterated lust washed over Neo.

Saints, the man had the most perfect ass he’d ever laid eyes on. Perfectly formed cheeks bordered the crevice hiding Dante’s tight sphincter. Below the mouthwatering crack, his balls hung, low and heavy, between his rippling thighs.

Before Neo could raise the whip, Sophia ran around the other side of the bench. She tangled her fingers in Dante’s curls and pressed her mound to his mouth.

Dante inhaled sharply, his balls drawing up close to his shaft at the smell of her. She urged him on silently, her hips moving, her pussy pushing close to Dante’s face.

Neo frowned, confusion swirling through his mind. He couldn’t remember ever hearing of a High Priestess participating in a showing ceremony, but then again, he hadn’t attended any in the past, either. Perhaps this was part of a bizarre ritual required by the Academy’s patron Saint.

Dante’s mouth clamped firmly on Sophia’s pussy.
Her back arched and a tortured cry escaped her lips as Neo brought the whip down, lashing Dante’s skin. A perfect red welt rose up where the braid had touched the man’s flesh, but no sound rose from his throat.