Breaking Brandi (14 page)

A slow grin spread across his lips that made
Brandi’s heart go pity-patter. “No. We will follow the ridge.”

Brandi was so stunned by Ulrich’s good
humor—by the fact that he’d smiled at her at all and by the effect
it had had on her—that she was reduced to silence. In point of
fact, complete feminine idiocy due entirely to Ulrich’s sex appeal
so completely enveloped her that they were nearing the top of the
mountain before she became sufficiently aware of her surroundings
to realize the sun had broken over a distant ridge.

Feeling more than a little sheepish—although
she didn’t think Ulrich could possibly have noticed her odd
behavior—she looked around until she spied the edge of the woods
below them and thought she could even discern the crevice where the
small creak cut across the landscape.

How could she have lost so much time, she
wondered? Had she fallen asleep?

Or was it just that not that much time had
passed?

She knew there had been moons in the sky
when they’d stopped to relieve themselves and drink, but then she
realized with more than a touch of surprise that she didn’t
actually know the movements of this world or its moons. The moon
might well whip around the world many times in the course of a
night. The days might be approximately the same as an Earth day—or
half as much or twice as long.

She felt like she’d been on this world an
eternity already, but when she fell to trying to calculate the
time, she realized she couldn’t possibly have been there much more
than a month.

Of course, she’d lost all track of time
after Nhewa had claimed her. She’d been sure a month, at least, had
passed while she’d been held prisoner, but she couldn’t even be
sure about that. She
was
sure that she had traveled with
Ulrich enough days to amount to a couple of week’s worth of time
back home. So if she was right about the time she’d been in the
temple—just under two months.

Of course, her life had radically changed in
a matter of seconds. From the moment she was stolen from her bed it
was like a ricocheting bullet. She’d been traveling in a straight
line on a course she was happy to leave pretty much in the realm of
‘unknown destination’ and then been thrown off on a completely
different tangent by alien interference.

That thought brought her full circle.

Ulrich had smiled at her and it had been
like getting hit with a concussion bomb! It had so completely
thrown her for a loop that it had suspended time in her mind.

She struggled to resist the awakening, tried
hard to dismiss the blossoming awareness of feelings she hadn’t
even realized were growing inside of her. Like an exotic seed had
taken root and began an insidious invasion of her psyche—so quietly
and cunningly that she was completely entangled before she’d even
known it was a threat.

She didn’t truly feel anything for Ulrich,
she told herself, beyond gratitude that he’d freed her, at least
briefly, from Nhewa.

At the same time, she was struggling with
the dismay that his determination to take her with him might get
him killed.

They’d nearly killed him, she was sure, when
they’d whipped him before.

She felt guilt about that—and about the
possibility that he might be whipped again, or worse, for freeing
her.

She found him physically attractive.

But what did she really know about him
beyond the fact that he was strong and brave, smart, surprisingly
gentle, thoughtful, and kind considering what his life had been
like—and that he’d not only survived what seemed to her nearly
impossible odds, but he’d bought his freedom—and hers.

Ok, so she knew a lot more about him than
she’d realized.

She didn’t really know much about his
past.

She didn’t understand what he’d meant when
he’d said he hadn’t been born at all.

But she did know that he was amazing in so
many ways that it wasn’t totally insane that she was beginning to
think she was falling in love with him.

Or maybe already had.

Of course, he wasn’t human, but one couldn’t
have everything!

They continued at a more or less breakneck
pace throughout most of the day, stopping briefly every few hours
to rest, and feed and water the beast—and themselves and then
almost immediately heading out again.

Brandi tried not to spend too much time
dwelling on the reason for the haste, but she was only partly
successful despite the exhaustion than began to invade her to such
a degree that she was hardly aware of anything else.

Toward sunset, a small cabin perched near
the edge of the ridge, came into view. Made of the same stone as
the mountain, it blended so well with the surroundings that Brandi
didn’t, in point of fact, notice it at first.

She was unnerved when she did, wondering who
lived there and if they would present a problem, then surprised
when Ulrich headed directly toward the small structure. He slid out
of the saddle when they reached the wide porch that ran across the
front, tied the beast’s reins and then helped her down.

Curious and confused, Brandi stumbled a
little on the steps that led up to the porch, partly because she
was so stiff from the ride and partly because she was so busy
looking around that she wasn’t minding her steps.

It was just as well she managed to work some
of the stiffness out of her muscles on the short walk from the
beast to the porch. They’d barely cleared the doorway when Ulrich
grasped her and lifted her to pin her against the wall behind
her.

“Now! You were going to thank me for
rescuing you from the temple,” he growled.

Brandi gaped at him, struggling with the
urge to burst out laughing. “My god! That was two days ago. And I
thought
Earth
men had one track minds!”

Chapter Ten

Briefly, he looked disconcerted. It was gone
in a flash, but not fast enough to prevent Brandi from regretting
the impulse.

He didn’t know her well enough to realize
she was teasing—or to be certain of it, anyway.

When he covered her mouth in a bruising
kiss, she absorbed the shock of his angry aggression apologetically
and curled her arms around his shoulders and head, kissing him
back. That one act changed the entire tenor of his kiss. He gentled
his touch and gave her passion laced desire rather than passion
borne as much of anger as physical need.

It sent an answering rush of desire through
Brandi, creating flash fire. She was suddenly hot all over,
steaming.

She hadn’t touched him before. She’d
remained completely submissive.

Spawned by her desire to make amends, at
first, she stroked her hands over every inch of his body that she
could reach, discovering that the more she stroked him, filling her
senses with him, the more excited she became, the more desperate
for penetration.

It inspired him to drag his dick from his
pants immediately and begin trying to pry her down over the thick
rod of flesh. With burgeoning impatience, she hooked her heels
under his ass and struggled to help. Despite the moisture that
flooded her channel, however, all either of them seemed to achieve
was to stretch the skin from her knees to her groin and stuff the
lips of her sex into her channel.

They both realized they weren’t making much
headway at approximately the same time.

Gripping her tightly, Ulrich turned to
survey the room and finally carried her the few steps from the wall
to a long padded seat that was neither bed nor couch but sufficed
for their needs. Carrying her down onto it, he used the leverage of
superior height and weight to wedge the head of his cock inside her
and pumped his hips until he’d driven as deeply as he could go.

Pinned by his weight, impaled on his cock,
Brandi discovered she couldn’t do much beyond flop
ineffectually—like a butterfly pinned to a mat.

It felt absolutely divine, however, and even
better than that when he began to stroke her channel rhythmically
by thrusting in and out!

As mindless in her pursuit of glory as he
was, Brandi struggled to move the way she needed to move to attain
rapture.

Not that he missed a lot. His dick was so
thick it stretched her almost beyond her limits, so the flesh was
thoroughly scoured by the friction of his movements. But some
places, she discovered, needed more pressure.

It began to seem as much a battle of wills
as a pursuit of pleasure, but Brandi finally managed to angle her
body just right to maximize her sensations and Ulrich found the
rhythm that suited him best and they reached nirvana almost as if
their climaxes had been synchronized.

Brandi uttered a series of ecstatic cries of
release in a chorus with Ulrich’s deep growl of satisfaction.

He sank heavily against her in the
aftermath—so heavily that she began to think he was going to push
her through the padding beneath her. “You’re crushing me,” she
gasped.

He levered himself upward immediately,
heaved a gusty breath. “You may thank me more when I return.”

Brandi uttered a chuckle that ended in a
snort.

Ulrich laughed. “That was elegant.”

Snickering in spite of her annoyance and
embarrassment, Brandi searched the bed blindly and finally came up
with a pillow to hit him with. “Kiss my ass.”

He did.

It tickled and Brandi beat him on the head
with the pillow, laughing harder.

Prying the pillow from her hands, he tossed
it into the corner. “You will be sorry you broke that on my head
when there is no pillow.”

“Hmm,” Brandi responded non-committally,
settling to doze.

“I must go.”

Brandi was drunk enough with the afterglow
of fabulous sex that it took her a few moments to digest that.
“What? Go? Go where?”

“I have lingered far longer than I should
have already.”

Brandi stared at him blankly as he rolled
off the mattress and began to adjust his clothing. But there was no
getting around the fact that he was clearly planning to
leave—immediately.

Wham, bam, thank you ma’am!

“You’re going?” she asked in disbelief.

“They will be waiting for me.” He shook his
head at her expression, clearly struggling with impatience now. “We
must cut off the head of the serpent.”

Ok, she was completely lost now. Something
must have been lost in translation. “We who? Serpent? You mean
snake? What snake?”

His expression hardened. “I will never again
be a slave and I have no mind to spend the rest of my life running
or looking over my shoulder. I will destroy Nhewa and his
followers.”

Brandi gaped at him. “By yourself?” she
gasped. “Not that you aren’t the
most
amazing man I’ve ever
met, but …. There are hundreds of them! Maybe thousands!”

His eyes gleamed with pleasure. He surged
toward her, leaning down to kiss her lips briefly before he
straightened away from her. “I spent weeks gathering an army and
working on a plan to destroy the order of Nhewa after they released
me—told me I had forfeited my right to you when I had not shared
you with joy as Nhewa demanded and tried to keep you to myself.

“Nhewa has far more enemies in this land
than friends. I doubt his priest warriors will fight once I have
killed him, but we are many, as well. If necessary, we will kill
them all,” he said grimly.

Brandi couldn’t think of a thing to say to
that as he turned and strode quickly to the door. He paused there,
turning to look at her again. “If I do not come back, this place
and all that it holds is yours.” He scanned the small cabin with
his gaze. “It is not much, I know, but it is solid and will shelter
you. And there is good soil in the garden I prepared. You could
live here in reasonable comfort and it is secluded. There are not
likely to be many who venture near here.”

Brandi scrambled from the bed and raced to
him, flinging herself at him and hugging him tightly. “Don’t go!
Please don’t leave me! They won’t find us here!”

He held her away and studied her face.
“There is no escaping them. They must be dealt with or there will
never be any peace.”

She felt like crying. “But … you said we
would make a baby together!” she reminded him a little
desperately.

He flushed, the first time she’d ever seen
anything even approaching a blush. “When I return …”

Brandi swallowed with an effort and nodded,
realizing nothing she could say would sway him but it could
distract him when he didn’t need to be distracted—or create
disharmony between them … resentment that they’d demanded more than
the other was willing to yield.

Beyond that, she knew he was right. They had
come after them before and nearly beaten Ulrich to death—to say
nothing of what they’d done to her.

She didn’t think she could endure that
again.

“Be careful.”

He looked disconcerted. “I will be making
war.”

Brandi blushed, afraid, and irritated
because she was. “That doesn’t mean you can’t be careful, damn it!”
She studied his face. “I can’t do this by myself, Ulrich. I don’t
know how you could think I could. My world isn’t like this at all.
I could take care of myself there, but I can’t here. I don’t know
how to do anything here.”

He shook his head at her. “Yes, you can. You
are strong, and brave, and smart.
They
could not break my
Brandi’s spirit. That is why I saw I must do something! They were
determined that they would break you and you refused to yield your
soul to them. You have the heart to do anything you set your mind
to. You can do this. I am sure of it.”

What about beautiful? He didn’t mention
beautiful! Didn’t he think she was beautiful?

She was still flattered by his
assessment—and felt uncomfortably guilty because she
knew
she hadn’t exactly hated it—not all of it.

Well, she might as well be honest about
it—she felt like a pervert, but she hadn’t just gotten used to it.
She’d found it pretty thrilling—scary, but a turn on. She damned
sure hadn’t volunteered or chosen to do it, though. And she wasn’t
going to feel guilty about it when that was as true as the fact
that she’d enjoyed something she’d had no power to prevent!