“Good to know you find us useful,” was the best I could do.
Her gaze dropped to my groin. “Oh, useful is not the word. You are scrumptious. Or you will be.” Her long tail twitched behind her, the bulbous poison gland at the tip appearing over her head. “Although you do not smell as delectable as you did last time.” Her eyes glittered with anger. “You’ve found yourself a female to fornicate with.” She pushed her face right up to mine. “I will find her and drain her dry for taking what was mine.”
I squelched my surge of rage before she could sense it, and drink in its energy. As her tongue flicked out toward me, another waft of stench made my eyes water. My memory had deliberately erased howbadly manticores stank. They regularly rubbed their own urine on their bodies and in their hair. It was their version of perfume—that and their copious gaseous emissions.
They also had an abysmal sense of smell, but they made up for it with the taste glands on their tongues. Their bodily secretions were supposedly rife with pheromones, which is why they reveled in them.
To the rest of the universe, they simply stank.
The tip of her tongue touched my jaw, and I pulled away. During our last encounter, she had outlined why virgins were preferred—the emotions resulting from her manipulations were particularly tasty without her victim having any past history to fall back upon.
I’d tasted the real thing, now. There was no going back from that.
I kept an eye on her tail, even though there was little I would be able to do if she decided to stab me with the shaftzing tip. While male Nirzk venom was designed to kill, that of the female was designed for an entirely different purpose.
She was contemplating using it. I could tell by the glitter in her eyes. So, I did my best to delay the inevitable. “Considering your hairy body”—I kept my expression deadpan—“do you not find clothing rather itchy?”
Her brows lowered. Calling a manticore hairy should not have been as insulting as her glare suggested—perhaps it was a female issue. I noticed, then, that she had also shaved the tops of her breasts.
I surmised no female wanted to be called hairy, not even a manticore.
The tail tip waved, and she expelled gas. Loudly, with her face revealing her satisfaction as her tongue flicked again. “You will be singing a different tune in a few hours.”
I blinked my watering eyes. “We have already been down that road, Brentoq. It led nowhere good.”
She grinned again. Not a pleasant expression. “Ah, but I have been practicing,” she said. And then, she moved aside, disclosing what her body had been blocking from me.
Only ten feet away, a Drake hung in restraints identical to myown. He was naked, and his body hung limp, as though drained. Which, judging by the fang marks everywhere on him—and I stresseverywhere—was likely the truth.
It took me a moment to recognize Senaik.
When Brentoq approached him, he opened his eyes, and a chill swept through me. Because there was no sanity left within them.
She glanced back at me. “Your friend has been quite scrumptious. Drakes provide prime meat in many ways, but I seem to have broken him earlier than most.” Another toothy grin. “More an appetizer than a main course.”
There was a sound of gas escaping, and I winced. “You do not seem to be digesting him well.”
She snorted a laugh and then extended her tongue. “Noses are so limited. So sad you cannot taste him in my expulsions. He was—rich.”
“Please.” Senaik’s voice was barely audible. “I wantmore.”
“Ah, my pet.” She reached a clawed hand to cup his jaw. “I do not think you have anything more to offer.” Her tail waved above him, and his feverish gaze fastened on it.
There were those that spoke of the manticore lust with wonder. And even some that sought it. I did not know if Senaik had asked for this…
“Please,” he begged.
He certainly was asking now.
She sighed. “Very well.”
The tail moved like lightning, the stinger sinking into his shoulder. He groaned, but not in pain. He started to shake all over, and his cock, which had been as limp as the rest of him, began to stiffen.
Brentoq closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and extended her tongue as she fed on the lustful energy her venom sent coursing through him.
Frustrated sexual energy was ambrosia to female manticores. They absorbed it like most species did desserts. Only once had they milked that for all it was worth, did they use their feeding fangs tosuck fluids. Males drank only blood, but females had other preferences. As their venom kept the male body in a continual state of arousal, the victim was caught in an endless loop of unrelenting lust.
I was sure I had only been unconscious for a few hours, and in that time, Brentoq had already broken Senaik. She had held me captive fordays, the last time. I had been near death when my brothers had rescued me, driven nearly mad by lust. Somehow, I had managed to resist the rapture—in the end, she had not gotten what she had wanted from me.
