Breaking Brandi Read Online Free Page A

abruptly feeling faint with terror? Or could he read
minds?
    Or was it just because that bastard that had
sold her had told him she was a runaway slave? Maybe that she would
have to be beaten into submission?
    The cloaked figures, she discovered when
Tank moved away, had descended the stairs. They surrounded her. One
on either side gripped her upper arms half carrying, half dragging
her up the stairs.
    Belatedly, Brandi pulled against their hold,
but nothing she could do broke their grip or even seemed to loosen
it and when she abruptly dropped her weight in the hope that it
would catch them off guard and break their hold, they simply
dragged her, banging her shins on the sharp edges of the steps.
    She would’ve screamed if she’d thought it
would do any good—if she’d been able to think straight and find her
voice. She was too mindless to even try to think of a way of
escape.
    But it did occur to her that she might have
been better off not to play her hand at the inopportune time she
had. She might have been able to catch them off guard if she’d been
smart enough to bide her time.
    Now they would be more watchful.
    Apparently, they grew tired of dragging her
by the time they reached the platform at the top. Two other robed
figures caught her ankles and lifted her and they carried her
inside and down a corridor illuminated with flickering torches.
When they reached a wide stair, they began to descend.
    By that time it had occurred to Brandi that
she might be better off if she simply pitched herself to the bottom
and ended ‘it’ as quickly as she could—but she didn’t have that
option either.
    They carried her to a room that contained a
fairly large pool.
    Drowning!
    That was quite possibly one of the worst
ways to go in Brandi’s book.
    She fought them like a tigress as they
carried her into the water.
    They ignored her struggles and bathed
her.
    She was starting to feel stupid by the time
they hauled her out again, but she quickly realized they weren’t
simply giving her a bath. This was a part of some sort of ritual.
They staked her down spread eagle on the floor, spread some sort of
aromatic oils all over her and then took knives and scraped the
hair off her entire body, leaving only the hair on her head.
    She was too frightened to move during most
of the process, but when they reached her genitals, she began
trying to jerk her arms loose.
    Her tormenter simply sat down on her belly,
pinning her hips to the hard stone floor, and continued.
    When they were satisfied, they unlocked the
manacles and carried her into the pool again.
    It occurred to Brandi that she hadn’t seen
the Tank since the robed priests had taken her and the priests
weren’t half his size or nearly as formidable.
    She braced herself when they carried her out
of the pool again. The moment her feet touched the stone, she
launched herself forward.
    Unfortunately, they were ready for her. They
let her and when she smacked into the stone hard enough to rattle
her brain, they pulled her arms behind her back and manacled them
tightly. A hood was placed over her head and secured tightly,
blinding her, then they simply picked her up like a log and carried
her from the room.
    Instead of returning the way that they’d
come, the procession turned in the opposite direction as they left
the bath and Brandi felt the sensation of descending, although she
hadn’t noticed another set of stairs leading down when they’d taken
her to the pool room.
    The air grew cooler as they descended,
whispering over her throbbing, heated skin and pebbling it until
shivers began to quake through her. When they reached the foot of
the stairs, Brandi thought they must have emerged at one end of a
large room from the way even the slightest sounds echoed. Torches
flickered in sconces around the stone walls. Even through the heavy
hood she could, faintly, detect their glow and she was chilled
enough that she could also detect the heat they gave off as she was
carried across