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chin.
Tariza snapped at him.
    “ Damn!” He yanked his hand
out of her reach.
    Dario clapped a palm over
her mouth. “Try again.”
    The boy reached under her
jaw and grabbed her wrist binding. He pulled her arms forward,
forcing her face right into the rocky soil. “Got her.”
    Saturnios took his hand off her mouth.
He lifted his body from hers, while keeping his legs across her to
pin her. Sliding down her length, he took her ankles in both hands.
They flipped her onto her back.
    Once again, Saturnios
stretched himself over her, using his weight to trap her.
Traitorous heat swelled inside her, throbbing in time to her
heartbeat.
    He reached one-handed into
the bag Paolo had produced, withdrew a flask of brandy and dabbed
some on a clean rag, which he used to wipe the dirt off her right
forearm. From a small, wooden box, he took a huge needle, some
thread, a pen and a jar of ink. Her mouth went so dry she could
hardly swallow. He was going to mark her permanently. Even if she
managed to escape, she’d always have his mark to remind her of what
he’d done to her.
    “ You’ll regret this,” she
said.
    “ Don’t all the villains say
that in those Galactic vids?”
    He’d seen Galactic vids?
They were illegal in Concordia, like most other Galactic
technology. “I’m no villain.”
    “ You are to us.” He shoved
a strip of leather between her teeth. “You can bite on this for the
pain.”
    “ Shouldn’t she have opium,
milord?” Paolo said.
    Tariza spit out the
leather. “I don’t fear pain. I’m a Concordian warrior.”
    “ Did you hear that, Paolo?
She’s a warrior.”
    Both men chuckled. She glowered at
them, which only seemed to make them laugh harder.
    “ I can take the pain, you
animals,” she said through gritted teeth.
    Saturnios shrugged. “All
right.”
    He wrote something on her
inner forearm with the pen and ink. Because of her position, she
couldn’t see what it was. He wrapped the thread thickly around the
needle and soaked it in ink. It disappeared from view as he moved
it out of the range of her vision. Then the needle bit into her
skin. She gave an involuntary flinch. It hurt more than she’d
expected.
    “ Easy, now,” Saturnios
murmured in a soothing tone, as if she were a horse that needed
reassurance. “You don’t want me to mess up the design.”
    Yes, she did. Tariza forced her heels
against the ground, using the leverage to jerk her upper body to
the left. Her shoulder protested against the movement with a sharp
pain. Saturnios swore.
    “ Hold still, damn
you.”
    She wrenched her body to the other
side. The needle flew out of his hand, rolled into some dry grass.
He swore again as he lowered his body flat over hers.
    Hard, hot male pressed
against her from her chest to her toes. Hard, dark eyes glared into
hers. Her pussy gave a desperate throb and her heart raced as she
looked up at him. Heat pooled between her thighs. He’d just taken
her, and like the fool she was, she wanted him again.
    No man but him had ever put
his body over hers. In Concordia, it wasn’t allowed. Tariza closed
her eyes.
    “ I despise you,” she
whispered.
    “ Of course you do.” He
reached over, put his hand in his bag and drew out the box that had
held the needle. “Lucky for you, I carry spares.”
    He opened the box one-handed and took
out a second needle, repeating the thread process. Keeping his body
over hers, he positioned the needle and pushed it into her skin.
She gritted her teeth.
    She couldn’t move beneath
him. There was no point in fighting him anymore. Perhaps later she
would have a chance, but for now she had to surrender and
rest.
    The needle punches seemed
to go on endlessly. She fixed her gaze on the sky above them. The
stars looked like white lace over black satin. Or perhaps an
enormous swarm of bees in a summer sky. That’s what the tattoo
process felt like – a bee sting. A whole lot of bee
stings.
    The next poke burned so badly she
threw back her head and yelled.