Jeanne G'Fellers - No Sister of Mine by Jeanne G'Fellers (reading tree TXT) 📗

to judge me and I’ll try to keep from doing the same.” She forced her mouth onto LaRenna’s. No one but Krell had ever kissed her like that. It was bitter. Vulgar. It made her desperate and she withdrew against the counter, biting Brandoff’s bottom lip until it bled.

“You provoked that one. Let her up and I bet she’d flatten you again.” Cance was overjoyed by the reaction, even though it only served to make Brandoff’s crude advances even more insistent. Brandoff pulled back from the embrace, undid LaRenna’s belt, and jerked it loose, snapping the doubled leather very near LaRenna’s ear, which startled her so completely Brandoff repeated the crack.

“Look at her scare. This is going to be the best I’ve had in ages.”

LaRenna bucked against her restraints with renewed vigor. Maybe if she fought hard enough they would cease the games and fight her fairly. Training and instinct both said death would be easy compared to this torment, a sacrifice in the name of duty. But Cance knew all this and intended to squelch the notion, grabbing her feet even tighter and rotating her right ankle. “Stop wiggling or I’ll break it.”

“Let me go!” LaRenna jerked her knees to her chest then kicked out, throwing Cance into the wall. The force slid LaRenna down the smooth counter, straight into Brandoff’s stout arm and boot knife.

“I’ll save us all trouble and kill you where you lie. You’ll serve my purposes alive or dead.” Metal scraped LaRenna’s throat, a convincing and almost welcomed reminder her life might soon be over. But the attack had to be met, so LaRenna reached out with her mind, found Brandoff, and ripped into the guardian’s rage, feeding it with pain until Brandoff began pressing the knife.

“DON’T!” Cance gasped. “She wants you to kill her!” She knocked the dagger from Brandoff’s grip then fell back wheezing. “I . . . want . . . her . . . alive!” Cance bent at the waist as her air returned. “She’s a ticket to safe . . . passage if there are . . . any problems.”

Brandoff rubbed the hand Cance had slapped. “Huh?”

“Belsas won’t let anything happen to her brat. Besides, the bitch took what was mine and now I have something to even the score.” Cance, aroused as she was perturbed by such resistance, snatched LaRenna’s legs into the air, twisting her slender right ankle out of place. “Realize now, I do what I say, every time.”

LaRenna cringed as her legs were dropped back on the bar. The prock swept away the pain and she soared again. It was engaging, intense, beautiful, until it dropped her, this time spinning her just short of unconsciousness.

Cance pulled her to a sitting position. “Speak up, girl. What did you tell your contact?” Silence echoed as the twins waited for an answer not forthcoming. LaRenna was limp, unable to answer even if she wanted. Cance shook her and restated the question. “The map, did you tell your lover about it?”

LaRenna’s high peaked once more into fury. She opened one eye then rolled it back as she spewed the only answer that made sense in such insanity. “Fuck you.”

Brandoff waltzed behind the bar and began to massage LaRenna’s trembling shoulders, sliding beneath her top to fondle her breasts. “Did you hear that, Cance? She’s begging us to do her. Come on, I’m about to burst. Maybe she likes two on one. Prock does that, you know.”

“I heard her. Just won’t learn, will she?” Cance took LaRenna’s hands and began to rub the palms. “Last chance, my sweet, tell me what I need to hear.”

“No.” Determination and finality clenched LaRenna’s mouth closed. No matter what they did or how they drugged her, she would never betray her post.

“Your choice.” Cance twisted the little finger of LaRenna’s left hand until it snapped. “I’ll break you one bone at a time if need be. That’s two. Wanna go for three?”

A single pained sob escaped LaRenna’s mouth, then she clamped down again, rankling her captors all the more. Their patience drawn to the limit, they nodded agreement on the next punishing tactic. LaRenna was forced back on the bar and stretched prone, her eyes blindfolded, her leg bindings divided and secured at opposite ends of a wall rack, her arms lashed at agonizing distention to the counter’s pass-through overhang. Brandoff undressed then straddled their captive, her bare knees pressing into LaRenna’s tender sides. Teeth bared in carnal foreboding, she pulled briefly at LaRenna’s skirts then paused to take four quick shots from her inhaler. “Your lover has nothing on me, girl. I’ll leave you screaming for more.” Brandoff’s grin turned malicious. “Well, I promise to have you screaming.”

“Tell us about the map.” Cance tempted amnesty one last time. “I won’t let her hurt you if you do. Don’t”—she pulled at LaRenna’s top—“and I’ll help her.” The room remained quiet until Cance sighed, sealing LaRenna’s fate. “The prock didn’t work. I should have expected as much from a Kimshee. It’s part of the training. Have at ’er, Brannie. She won’t talk no matter what we do.”

Screams formed in the deepest part of LaRenna’s being and escaped in rafter-shaking amplitude throughout the Waterlead. She fought valiantly, dizzying height after dizzying height; writhing, biting, and scratching until Brandoff finally reared back and struck her hard. Even then reality hung on one miserable minute more, withholding the peace of insensibility until one memory became indelible. Cance removed the blindfold and looked deep into her as she slipped away.

“You’re mine by oath.” Cance’s expression was trancelike, contented by the memory of someone else. “Belsas will never win you from me, Chandrey. Never.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

My promises are deep and true. Forever I am yours.

—from Guardian’s Song

Belsas paced her workroom. “I trust you with my only child and this is what happens? How could you, Krell?” She stared intensely at Krell’s apprehensive projection. “This is simply inappropriate.”

Chandrey shook her head. “LaRenna is a braided Kimshee on post.