Dragon-Ridden (26 page)

“Oh, but you do.”

“I am tired of these game. Tell me
what you know before I decide to entertain myself at your expense.”

“First, I would like the original
terms of our contract observed,” Umi said.

“I don’t have the item anymore,”
the Red Lady said thrusting her chin out. “It was stolen in transit.”

“Ah, but I know who stole it, so it
will be a simple matter for you to steal it back and return it to me,” Umi said
smoothly.

The Red Lady gave a regal nod in
agreement. “Agreed. Provided that you know who stole it and aren’t lying.”

“Of course.”

“Very well. Where is this person?”
the Red Lady asked.

It wasn’t a total surprise when Umi
turned and walked to Tate, stopping in front of her. Tate looked up at her with
extreme dislike. Umi’s face was impassive as she regarded Tate. The smallest
smile of victory graced her lips for a fleeting moment.

“She is here.” Umi gestured to
Tate.

“Her?”

“Your man said it himself. Lucius
and his men are searching for her because she took something of theirs,” Umi
said. “His men stole the key, and she stole it from them as a ruse to get close
to my men and me.”

“That’s a lie,” Tate spat trying to
stand up. Ulfric kicked her in the back of the knee. Pain shot from it, and her
leg folded under her. She fell to the floor, unable to catch herself with her
hands tied behind her back.

“Be careful of her,” Umi advised
watching Tate’s ungraceful sprawl with dispassionate eyes. “She pretends at
ignorance and naivety to get close to her mark.”

After her unsuccessful attempt at
defending herself, Tate wasn’t interested in protesting the point. It was clear
that there were no words in the world capable of convincing these people of her
innocence. They didn’t care.

“Naughty, naughty, little morsel,”
the Red Lady purred. To Umi, she said, “Very well, you’ll have my help tomorrow
night.”

“Is it wise to discuss such things
in front of her?” Umi asked, glancing at Tate. “She works for the enemy.”

“Do not tell me how to run my
business, girl. If you have a problem with the way I do things, perhaps you
should stage your little coup by yourself.”

Umi held herself stiffly, and if
Tate hadn’t been crouched next to her she would have missed the skin tightening
around her lips in displeasure. No doubt it was difficult for a lady of Umi’s
refinement to take orders from the insane and petty woman who styled herself as
nobility.

The Red Lady had let slip an
interesting piece of information about a coup. Tate had to wonder if Umi was
the legitimate owner of the lost item she’d employed Tate to recover. From the
sound of things, it played a pretty significant role in her bid for power. It
also begged the question whether Ryu had known about Umi’s hidden agenda. This
was probably the kind of thing Ryu had wanted her to report back on.

The Red Lady waved a hand in
dismissal. Though it was obvious that Umi wanted to continue their discussion,
she and Kadien reluctantly bowed and left.

“Guess you won’t be reporting back
to your master after all,” Umi whispered to Tate.

Tate watched them go, wishing they
would stay. She didn’t want to be the sole focus of the Red Lady’s attention.

“Now, my dear, I believe you have
something of mine,” the Red Lady said descending from her throne.

Tate shook her head, unable to
talk, her voice locked inside. She could feel her heart racing and her skin
flush until she was sweating. She was no longer cold.

“Nothing to say?” the Red Lady
asked, circling Tate. Around and around she went. At first Tate tried to keep
track of her, but stopped after the woman’s third circuit. “How original. I’ve
never seen that before,” the Red Lady said in a sweetly sarcastic voice. “We’ll
just have to see what we can do to fix that.”

Tate’s skin was almost jumping in
anticipation. She wished they’d just get on with it. The threat of the unknown
was almost worst to contemplate than whatever they had planned for her.

A hand grabbed her hair and
wrenched her head back, drawing her up off her knees. Her feet scrabbled
against the stone, fighting to get their balance. Hair pulling. That wasn’t so
bad.

Another hand caressed Tate’s cheek
gently, and the Red Lady moved in front of her, changing the grip on Tate’s
hair as she moved. The woman was much stronger than she looked.

“Amazing,” the Red Lady said,
trailing her fingers from Tate’s cheek down to her collarbone. “There’s no fear
in your eyes. It’s been so long since anybody has come before me with such
courage. Watching that pride change slowly to fear will make breaking you that
much sweeter.”

Her fingers tightened around Tate’s
throat, becoming a vise, almost but not quite cutting off her oxygen. Tate
jerked against her bonds, every instinct she possessed saying run. Fight.
Escape. It was useless. Ulfric’s arms held firm.

The Red Lady tilted Tate’s head up
to meet her eyes. Once she’d met the Red Lady’s gaze, it was impossible to look
away, to blink. She felt mesmerized by the deep amber of the woman’s eyes.
Pressure built in her head, stinging tendrils of power moved across her skin
from the woman’s grip, seeking to find a way in to invade and conquer.

Tears leaked from Tate’s eyes as pain
ripped across her nerve endings. It felt like someone had shoved their hand in
her head and was scooping bits and pieces of her out with the expertise of a
butcher. A scream built in her chest, begging to escape but locked inside her
throat.

Her mind gibbered
no, no
nononononononono. Get out get outgetoutgetoutgetout.

Abruptly, she was released. She
plummeted to the ground, her muscles slow to respond, landing awkwardly on her
back with her arms under her. Her shoulders protested as her arms were almost wrenched
from their sockets. Gasping, she rolled to her side and threw up.

“Nothing!” the Red Lady said as she
turned away. “I got nothing.”

Exhausted, Tate watched the edge of
the woman’s gown as she paced back and forth in front of her. She really needed
to assign the Red Lady a name. Preferably a light, fluffy one that made her
sound ridiculous. But it was hard to think, thoughts slipping away. The muscles
in her body trembled as if they’d been overused, instead of simply locking up.

“How can there be nothing?” the
woman muttered. “Get her up. We’ll try this again.”

Ulfric grasped Tate by the shirt
and hauled her to her feet, supporting her when her legs would not. When the
Red Lady reached for her, she fought, squirming against Ulfric, not wanting
those slimy tendrils invading her mind again. He clasped her in a bear hug,
making it easy for the Red Lady to grab her head and tilt it back.

Tate closed her eyes. Don’t meet
her eyes. She wouldn’t make this easy for them.

“Open her lids.”

The iron hold on her shifted, and
she was thrown to the ground. A weight came crashing down before she could
move, pinning her arms to her side. She kneed him in the back but couldn’t get
enough leverage. Rough fingers held her eyelids open, nearly blinding her in
the process.

Just like that, the Red Lady caught
her gaze. Her body froze, unable to fight. Again the stinging tendrils picked
at her mind, but this time they were rougher. Forcing their way through and
shredding Tate’s mind in the process.

Almost immediately they pulled back
and Tate’s body went lax.

“How can this be?” the Red Lady
hissed furiously. “Nobody has been able to resist me. Nobody.”

“My lady.”

“What!?” she yelled.

“Perhaps your other methods would
work better on her?”

The lady was full of frantic energy
as she paced, unable to stand still. At Ulfric’s suggestion she paused, tilting
her head to one side. A smile graced her face and she clapped her hands. “Yes.
I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. Get her up, and strip her shirt off.”

It was difficult to think as he
pulled her up and unlocked the manacles. He had her arms secured to a chain
dangling from the ceiling before she could do more than feebly kick at him. Her
body didn’t move like she wanted, and her head lulled on her neck.

It was obvious from the ease with
which he moved that he had done this many times before.

He jerked on the other end of the
chain, and her arms rose with a jerk until she could barely support her weight
on her tippy toes. She bit back a groan, not wanting to give them the satisfaction.

She rubbed her face against her
shoulder wanting to wipe the tears away for the same reason. Streaks of red
dotted her shirtsleeve when she was done. Not tears. Blood.

A streak of pain radiated from her
back, as Ulric punched her right where her kidney would be. She and the chains
swayed from the force. Another blow landed right below her ribs. She grunted
but refused to scream.

“That all you got?” she taunted.
Not wise, but she was unable to just hang there.

He walked in front of her and smiled,
right before driving his fist into her stomach.  She retched unable to
breath, her lungs seizing and stomach spasming.

“It’s like a dance,” the Red Lady
said from her seat on the throne. She proped her head on her hand and smiled.
Tate hadn’t seen her move away.

While she was busy relearning how
to breath, he ripped her shirt off, sleeves and all, leaving only her breast
band.

“Let’s start with this.” He held up
a thin cane, hitting it against his palm twice, the crack echoing throughout
the chamber. He turned to the onlookers. “How many lashes until she screams?”

“Five,” one man shouted. “No, ten,”
another cried. Others shouted their bets and money exchanged hands.

“Let’s see who the winner is, shall
we?” Ulric said moving behind Tate.

Bastards every one of them. She
would survive this, and when she did she’d make every person who’d place a bet
pay. Ulric had turned so she faced the Red Lady, so she could watch Tate’s
expressions while she was being tortured. The court had migrated to the dais to
have a better vantage point as well.

Tate studied them, separating her
mind from her body as Ulric gave a few experimental cracks of the cane. She
noticed every detail of her audience so that when it came time, she’d know she
had the right ones.

There were nine of them, mostly
men, but two women besides the Red Lady. One of them at the back kept looking
away and edging behind the others. Tate looked closer and saw a familiar
profile. It was only a glimpse, and she couldn’t be sure, but it looked like
Darren, the first mate on the Marauder.

She blinked rapidly. That couldn’t
be, Tate had watched them set sail.

Ulric slammed the cane into Tate’s
back. Her body twisted with the pain, and she bit her lips to contain the
scream. Fire licked up and down her skin as two more blows landed.

Tate sucked in a breath and gripped
the chain tight in her hands. She’d felt worse, she told herself. Not so bad.

Displeased with her silence, Ulric
drew his arm back and whipped her again, a couple of the blows landing on her
butt and thighs. A few of the lashes broke the skin and a steady trickle of
blood slid down her skin.

She was distantly aware of the
crowd laughing and jeering, their words indistinguishable in the haze of pain.
She gritted her teeth and nearly sobbed when another lash landed. She blinked
away the tears and glared at the onlookers. Laugh it up, she told them
silently, because this wouldn’t last forever. When she escaped every one of
them would pay.

She took all the pain and channeled
it into a ball of fury and hatred until she almost looked forward to the next
blow, knowing it added fuel to her rage. The ball expanded, filling her up
until her flesh felt too small to contain what was inside. Just a little more.
Heat began to rise from her skin as a red haze filled her vision. She jerked
from the force of another blow, a nasty smile stretching across her lips.

She threw her head back, shuddering
as her body convulsed, the muscles on her back rippling as if something moved
beneath her skin.
Almost,
came the entity’s thought. Its presence inside
Tate grew, edging her out, as it took over. She didn’t mind because with its
advance the pain got further and further away. Another blast of heat wafted
from her, intense enough that the metal on her wrists warped.

“Stop,” the Red Lady suddenly
shouted.

Ulric stopped with his arm half
drawn for another swing and turned to the Red Lady who watched at Tate with a
powerful greed.

“Her arm.” The Red Lady pointed at
Tate. “What’s that on her arm?”

Ulric twisted Tate’s body until he
could see the arm the Red Lady was pointing to. “Great Saviors rescue us,” he
whispered. He shot her a wide-eyed glance, fear crossing his face.

The tattoo had changed once again,
perhaps fueled by the rage engendered in its owner. The wings had unfurled and
its back had arched, the tail swishing madly across Tate’s arm.

Tate hung there feeling bereft as
the entity’s presence faded.

She lost track of time briefly and
felt a mild surprise when the Red Lady was suddenly before her reaching up to
touch her tattoo in awe.

“Dragon-ridden,” the lady
whispered.

“Impossible,” someone from the
crowd said. “There hasn’t been a female dragon in recorded history.”

The tiny dragon on Tate’s arm spat
a small spark of flame when the Lady tried to touch it. To Tate, the flame felt
like the summer’s sun, but the Red Lady screamed when it touched her fingers.
They came away red and already blistering.

Tate felt a tired sense of
satisfaction as the woman started crying. For someone who loved dealing out
pain, she certainly couldn’t handle it very well.

“Think this is funny?” the lady
asked shrilly. “Nobody hurts me. Not anymore. I won’t let them.” She drew back
a hand clad heavily in jewels and swung it, slapping Tate across the face,
splitting Tate’s cheek with one of her gaudy rings. “Do you still think it’s
funny?” She backhanded Tate, this time busting her lip. “Not so funny now? Is
it?”