Checkmate by Katherine Kingston Page A

slow with him,
massaging and kneading his balls, exploring with her fingers the smooth path
behind them, tracking around his anus and then up his penis. She dipped into
every crease and crook. Fascination with his body drove everything else from
her mind for a time, even the presence of an audience.
    Meanwhile his tongue did wicked things to her. It roved, hot
and slick, up and down her thigh, across the labia and then plunged inside to
find her clit. She squealed and groaned deliberately making the sound louder
than she normally would have. A piercing shriek forced its way out when his
clever lips closed over the bud and began to roll and squeeze it. The man had
the most versatile mouth.
    The aroma of his sex surrounded her. The feel of him beneath
her fingers and the strange vulnerability of it lent a further enticement. She
was drowning in him and couldn’t imagine wanting to do this with anyone else.
With him it was perfectly right, no matter where or when or who was watching.
    Then the building pressure in her cunt drove out all
thoughts. The explosion almost caught her by surprise as she suddenly came
apart in a huge jerk. It drew from her a full-throated scream.
    While still jerking from the shock of it, she took him deep
in her mouth and sucked, hard. He roared, too, and his cum spurted.
    By the time they’d each calmed enough to be aware again,
Devonne couldn’t handle the emotion anymore and burst into tears.
    Amidst the cheers and foot-stomping of the crowd, Raje
twisted until he could enclose her in his arms. “Too much for you?” he asked
quietly, brushing away a tear.
    “I’m just a bit overwhelmed.” How could she tell him that
she remembered she loved him and didn’t believe they could have any future? How
could they, when he’d lied to her, abused her trust and used her assistance to
further his own personal agenda?
    “Me, too.” He hugged her closer. “But we’re getting through
this, and then we’ll see where we are.”
    The next day, Whetlock told her they’d be fighting treckles.
As far as he’d been able to determine, treckles were small creatures with nasty
bites. Devonne and Raje were outfitted in plain shorts and sleeveless T-shirts
with ankle boots. The Sangari handed her a five-foot-long pike with a point at
the end. It also had a broad blade about a foot long and six inches wide below
the point on one side and a hook on the other.
    The center of the field held no ring or platform that day,
nothing at all to break up the circular expanse of grayish green vegetation on
the ground. Once she’d met Raje in the middle of it, several doors opened in
the wall, releasing packs of six-inch-tall, six-inch-wide creatures that each
looked like a cross between a crab and a large spider. The treckles moved
quickly in any direction on eight spindly legs. A tough carapace protected the
upper surfaces of their bodies and heads. They also had nasty, sharp teeth. Due
to their size, a single bite wouldn’t do much damage, but in a mass they could
strip the flesh from a man if they overwhelmed him. Devonne guessed there might
be two hundred of them.
    Based on the way they charged straight for the middle of the
field, toward them, she suspected the creatures were either hungry or regarded
them as intruders on their turf. Or both.
    Because they ran toward them from all sides, she and Raje
stood back to back, waiting.
    “Don’t try stabbing them,” Raje suggested. “You won’t be
able to keep up. Sweep the weapon at the pack like this.” She turned to watch
him demonstrate. He held the staff out, angled down toward the ground. The flat
blade was nearly parallel with the field surface and the end just a couple of
inches above it. He then made a sharp, side-to-side motion. “Cut out their legs
and it should disable a bunch of them at a time.”
    It made sense to her and it worked almost as well in
practice as it did in theory. The creatures scuttled out of the way with
surprising speed. Each swipe