Breaking Brandi (11 page)

Ulrich had begun to move as if he was in a
great hurry.

As
if
men didn’t do that when they
got on the road anyway! They didn’t even want to stop to pee, let
alone spend money at restaurants and hotels!

Of course, if the temples were what passed
for hotels on this planet, she was all in favor of skipping a
few—or all of them—and sleeping on the ground!

But she’d decided that they must have
reached an area where there just weren’t any temples. She’d just
been grateful for the respite.

So what that it? Ulrich had gotten a wild
hair up his ass and decided to ignore the ‘law’ of the land? Gotten
tired of dragging her from one temple to the next and having to
wait while they tried to fuck her to death?

Had her germ of a suggestion taken root?

Was she ultimately to blame because she’d
made it clear she thought it was nothing more than superstition and
it was ridiculous to be governed by make-believe things?

She frowned, thinking it over, but try as
she might she simply could
not
recall how much she’d voiced
aloud and how much she’d simply thought. She didn’t see how she
could have planted a seed of doubt in his mind if she hadn’t said
something to that effect, but she couldn’t remember trying to
convince him nothing would happen if they didn’t stop.

Was that it? Was that what this was all
about? They’d discovered, somehow, that Ulrich had decided to skip
out on paying any more tolls and they’d tracked them down to punish
them for it?

And, saying they couldn’t convince the
bastards they hadn’t done anything to deserve being ‘arrested’,
what did they have in mind as punishment?

That thought made her belly clench with
fear.

It was unfortunate that she’d distracted
herself with useless speculation when she might have had at least a
slim chance of throwing herself off the guak and avoiding whatever
punishment they might have in mind. Because when she finally worked
her way around from the ‘why’ to the endless, horrible
possibilities they might have in mind as punishment, she realized
that they were approaching one of the temples to Nhewa—this one by
far the largest and most intimidating she’d seen yet.

* * * *

Brandi supposed she’d had some dim idea that
they were going to get a trial of sorts. She supposed she’d been
expecting to be thrown into some deep, dark hole until the
worshippers of Nhewa got around to formally charging them with
whatever ‘crime’ they’d trumped up and retribution wasn’t something
that was going to come swiftly—regardless of what form it took.

Either the priests were really, really
pissed off, though, or ‘justice’ on this world moved with blinding
speed and even less regard for fairness than it did on Earth.

The temple priests began to bang their gong
before the party she was with was even close enough to be
recognized by sight—unless the aliens had far better vision than
humans. By the time they’d reached the foot of the temple, faithful
followers had already gathered in an uneasy crowd. Brandi was
dragged off the beast she’d been tied to and half carried, half
dragged up the stone steps to the top. She didn’t realize Ulrich
wasn’t behind her until she got there and was turned to face the
crowd below.

Ulrich, she saw then, had been chained
between two of the posts she’d thought were primarily there to tie
up the beasts the people rode.

A priest—high priest, she supposed—who was
far larger than most—in fact damned near as big as Ulrich the
tank—emerged from the temple behind her and moved to the top of the
steps. Spreading his arms wide, he began a speech that seemed to
agitate the crowd below even more.

Unfortunately, she didn’t have a fucking
clue of what he’d said, although she supposed he was explaining to
the crowd what it was that they’d supposedly done.

She began to wonder if, maybe, Ulrich
actually
had
done something. Maybe he’d robbed the treasury
at one—or all—of their stops?

Her fear rose to new heights when that
occurred to her and when the High Priest descended the stairs to
confront Ulrich for his real or imagined crimes, she thought she
was going to puke, or maybe pass out.

It didn’t cross her mind to wonder if she
was more afraid for herself or Ulrich until she saw the barbed,
multi-tailed whip that was handed to the High Priest.

The bastard was going to kill him with that
thing!

“No!” she screamed, surging against her
captors so suddenly and with such force that she actually managed
to break their hold for a few moments—long enough to descend three
steps before she was recaptured. “You’ll kill him! Don’t! He didn’t
do anything wrong!”

The only thing she actually accomplished
with her outburst was to draw the unwanted, unwelcome attention of
every single being standing in or around the temple. They gaped at
her in patent disbelief.

As if a tree had abruptly spoken.

But then again they probably hadn’t
understood one word, Brandi reflected later.

Even Ulrich whipped his head around to gape
at her in disbelief.

It flickered through her mind to wonder if
she’d lost her mind. Was it simply shock and horror that they would
consider doing something like that to anyone?

Or fear for herself?

Or fear for Ulrich?

The High Priest jerked his head at the
priests holding her, lifted the whip and brought it down across
Ulrich’s back.

Brandi screamed as if she’d felt the blow
herself, watching in horror as long gashes opened down his back and
dark liquid began to ooze from the tears. She fought the men
holding her. “Stop it, you bastards! Oh my god! What did he do? Why
are you doing this, you monsters?”

She almost managed to fight her way free of
her jailers again, but they dragged her inside of the temple. The
horrible sounds followed her, the wet, meaty thuds of repeated
lashings.

A more horrible thought followed her into
the tiny cell they threw her into.

What if her behavior had made them decide to
give him more lashes?

She dropped weakly to the pallet on the
floor when they left her, struggling with nausea, trying to erase
the images from her mind of the brutal beating.

If he survived the beating he was going to
be horribly scared—mentally and physically.

Her nausea almost got the best of her with
that thought. Instead, she burst into tears.

She still didn’t know whether it was more
from fear for herself or Ulrich, but she didn’t want to be caught
blubbering either way.

They would see it was a weakness and she
didn’t think she could afford to convince them she was weak and
helpless.

They probably already thought so just
because she was a woman.

Or maybe it could be used as a defense of
sorts?

She managed to regain control of her
emotions at that thought, turning it over and over in her mind, but
then she remembered trying to fight lose to rush to Ulrich.

She didn’t have a clue of what she’d hoped
to accomplish, but she was pretty sure she’d given away way more
than she ought to have with that stupid display of useless
emotion!

“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” she muttered to
herself.

She doubted she could convince them that she
was weak and frail after
that
!

And they were no doubt convinced that she
cared about Ulrich.

Her belly knotted at the thought.

She didn’t, though. Not really. Not beyond
the fact that she needed him to stay alive and he was a human—well
a higher, intelligent being—and shouldn’t be treated like that!

Actually, it would’ve been worse if he was
animal. At least he understood what he’d done and why it was
happening to him.

Which was more than she could fucking say!
She still didn’t have a real clue of why the priests had decided to
… make an example out of them, she supposed.

Were they going to chain her to the same
posts when they were done with Ulrich and strip the skin off of her
with that horrible thing?

Unable to stay still, she lurched to her
feet and began to pace back and forth across the small stretch of
floor she had. Some time passed before she heard a noise
outside—footsteps, a dragging noise.

Her imagination instantly conjured an image
of Ulrich, bloodied, his skin shredded, being dragged along the
corridor outside.

A meaty thud filtered through to her a few
minutes later and the sound of a cell door being slammed closed and
locked.

She waited fearfully, holding her breath,
listening to the marching feet approach her door and then,
thankfully, fade into the distance.

She sat down then, wondering if she’d been
spared the beating because they had something else in mind for her
or if they’d just decided to beat her the next day to get the full
effect of terrorizing the local inhabitants into obeying the
priests unquestioningly.

She thought that was what this was really
about—
had
to be.

They’d chased them down. Beaten Ulrich
within an inch of his life—he
had
to still be alive or there
wouldn’t have been any point in locking his cell, she told
herself.

And she still had to face some kind of
punishment herself.

The thought terrified her and she tried not
to think about it, but she knew they had something in mind for her,
too.

Chapter Eight

Brandi didn’t realize that she was hopeful
that they would put off her punishment a while until she realized
they weren’t going to. She was taken to the purifying pool and
bathed, oiled, scraped and bathed again. When the priests had
prepared her to receive, her hands were bound behind her back and a
black hood lowered over her face.

The moment the thing fell over her face,
blinding her, seeming almost to deafen her, as well, Brandi’s blood
ran cold with stark terror. She was only slightly reassured when
she discovered that she could breathe without difficulty.

She’d been blindfolded by the priests
before, but she didn’t want to know if the hood had been placed on
her head for the same reason, or if this ordeal would be even
worse.

It took an effort to keep from blubbering in
terror when they lifted her and carried her to the chamber. The
dread didn’t dissipate as she was set on her feet. Instead, her
stomach tightened even more. Her hands were unbound. Gripping her
wrists tightly, the priests led her a short distance and then
turned her and pushed her back against something solid. Lifting her
arms out to her sides, they clamped manacles around her wrists once
more.

Despite her fear, puzzlement descended upon
her when she realized that the ‘wall’ seemed to end somewhere along
the middle of her back.

Hands gripped her legs just above her knees
and her legs were lifted and spread wide. For many moments, she
hung from her arms while something almost as wide as the length of
her thighs was wrapped around them. It was tightened, lifting her
thighs wider and higher. The pain in her shoulders eased, but she
thought the pain in her thighs might have overshadowed it anyway.
Fingers parted her nether lips. Something hot, moist, and faintly
rough penetrated the mouth of her sex, startling a reflexive jerk
from her.

It was pushed slowly along her channel,
almost as if it was exploring the cavity, until it touched her
womb. After a few moments, it was withdrawn.

The tension went out of her as it was
removed. A few moments passed and then she felt fingers parting her
flesh once more. Again, something hot touched her. This time,
however, it was smooth, rounded, large and solid. She gasped,
panting as it was pushed inside of her, stopping a hair’s breadth
from her womb.

It was so hot that for the first few seconds
after it was pushed inside of her, fear surged through her that it
would begin to burn. To her relief, although it felt hot inside of
her, there was no discomfort from the heat of it. Neither was it so
large as to cause her pain, although the rigidity of it did produce
some discomfort.

She wasn’t particularly reassured. She’d
thought her fears must be groundless, despite the mask, when they’d
taken her and pinioned her to the wall—or whatever it was that she
was bound to. It wasn’t exactly like her previous experiences in
the temples, but being bound was nothing new and it certainly
seemed sexual as all of the other encounters had been.

This was the beginning of their ritual,
however, and that meant things would grow progressively more
uncomfortable for her. She suspected the next would be bigger and
the one after that larger still. She tried not to think about the
possibility that she had made them so angry they might decide to
sacrifice her by splitting her body on a stone cock.

Something hot, moist and faintly rough raked
over the skin of her leg, sending a shock wave through her. It felt
much like a tongue, except rougher, and longer. In an almost
leisurely manner, it ‘licked’ her belly. Moving upward, it stroked
first one breast and then the other, making her nipples pebble
painfully and stand erect. Heat and moisture gathered in her sex as
it continued to stroke her breasts, alternating between them.
Within a few minutes, she was moaning and panting with pleasure
instead of fear. The pleasure escalated rapidly until she began to
squirm and shudder, the muscles of her passage tightening
spasmodically around the stone cock. She struggled harder and
harder to drag enough air into her lungs as the tension inside of
her approached its peak.

Abruptly, sharp teeth fastened over one
breast, digging in almost painfully, and a mouth closed around her,
sucking so hard it flung her over the precipice into scalding, mind
drugging ecstasy. When she’d ceased to shudder and gasp hoarsely,
the mouth was withdrawn.