Breaking Brandi Read Online Free

as they rode through alien
forest, following a trail barely wider than the beast they rode,
and Brandi’s uneasiness rose, keeping pace with the deepening
gloom.
    She wasn’t accustomed to being in a rural
setting after dark—completely exposed to nature—and she certainly
had no clue of what might lurk in the darkness of this alien world.
The man-creature didn’t seem the least uneasy about it, but she
couldn’t imagine that he would have much to fear from anything. He
looked like he could crush bones without effort—tear most anything
limb from limb without breaking a sweat.
    But would he protect her? He’d invested a
good bit of money in buying her—at least it had looked that way to
her—but did he value her enough to risk injury or death to prevent
her injury or death?
    She wasn’t as convinced as she would’ve
liked to be—particularly since she was apparently too far beneath
him to be allowed to speak.
    It was with relief that she spotted a very
large stone structure in the distance and realized, thought, they
must be headed toward it.
    And yet the relief faded the closer they
came to the structure and doubts and fear crept in.
    It didn’t actually look like a hotel or a
home of any kind. It looked … almost ominous in the deep gloom,
like some kind of ancient temple. And as little as she recalled
about the history she’d been taught in school, she did remember
ancient religions seemed to revolve around sacrifices.
    Was she about to discover why she’d been
bought?
    * * * *
    The closer they came to the structure Brandi
had spotted, the more certain she was that it was a temple of some
sort. And the more convinced she was that it was a religious
structure the more certain she was that it couldn’t be their
destination.
    She was wrong on the latter speculation. The
Tank headed straight for it and pulled the beast to a halt when
they reached it. Leaving her perched precariously in the saddle, he
took the reins and tied the beast at a hitching post and then
picked up the stick dangling from a rope beside a huge gong and
struck it.
    The noise nearly unseated Brandi because the
beast tried to rear.
    The Tank grasped the bridle, balled one
meaty fist up and slammed it against the side of the animal’s bony
skull.
    The arm looked like a pile driver. Brandi
wasn’t surprised the animal stopped bouncing around. She was surprised it didn’t keel over.
    When he’d calmed the beast, Tank moved to
her and removed her from the saddle, setting her on her feet on the
first of the multitude of stone steps that led up into the temple.
When Brandi followed the ‘waterfall’ upwards with her gaze, she
discovered that there were robed figures at the top—summoned no
doubt by the ‘door bell’ the Tank had rung.
    Uneasiness slithered through her.
    She realized she hadn’t seriously considered
the possibility that she might be used as a sacrifice even though
that thought had occurred to her as the most frightening
scenario—next to being eaten.
    Otherwise she would’ve fought the Tank like
a tigress.
    She doubted she could’ve escaped, but she
would’ve made a damned good attempt.
    She supposed she’d been lulled into a false
sense of security by fact that she’d been taken by an advanced race
and the unthreatening manner the Tank had shown toward her. The
planet and its inhabitants seemed primitive by Earth
standards, but she figured they couldn’t be too primitive if they
were accustomed to trading with aliens from other worlds like the
frog people.
    What did she know, though, she thought
abruptly? She was certainly no expert on alien culture—she wasn’t
even an expert on human cultures.
    She was debating whether she should take her
chances in the wilds of the alien world and damn the flesh she
would lose in the fight for freedom when she felt the Tank unfasten
one manacle, pull her arms behind her and lock the manacle on her
wrist again.
    Had he read her thoughts in her expression,
she wondered,