Jeanne G'Fellers - No Sister of Mine (17 page)

“Sorry, little Aut sucker.” Brandoff regained her footing. “Phase-burn me will you? Let’s get rid of those lenses so I can show her what kind of phase I really prefer.”

“Yes, indeed.” Cance forced another phase, not a painful one this time but a sickening pulse of unwanted pleasure. LaRenna slapped at the phase but it held, twisting her stomach even tighter.
You’ve pissed off my twin, pretty one. Not a smart move.
She glanced at her double. “Little thing’s a fair shot. Bloodied you up nicely.”

“She’s not half as good as I am.” Brandoff grabbed LaRenna, pulled to full height, and jammed one knee deep into her stomach, the blow throwing her back into Cance’s arms. The force crunched ribs, jarring inward workings until LaRenna gagged, startling Cance into breaking her phase and tossing her to the floor. LaRenna barely made it to her knees before she lost control, her searing gut in spasms as she expelled mouthful after mouthful of bile-tasting spew.

“Now look what you’ve done, Brannie,” Cance teased. “The barmaid has a mess to clean.” Cance kept back and allowed their prisoner to empty her stomach onto the floor, sure the punishment was unfitting the crime but unwilling to censure Brandoff. When the retching subsided, LaRenna crumpled to her side, finding momentary peace until Cance pulled her to a chair in the dining room’s center.

Cance handed a roll of hide binding to Brandoff. “Truss her good but not too tight. Remember what happened to that Aut girl you took to on the way here.”

“How was I to know she’d die from that?” Brandoff, ignoring Cance’s reminder that far more than strangled limbs had killed that child, secured LaRenna’s hands and feet, double-checking for fit. “Pity.” She forced up LaRenna’s lacerated chin until their eyes met. “Such a delicious little thing to rough up so. Do us all a favor, beautiful, be a good girl and cooperate from here on out. Don’t make me hit you again.”

Cance’s fingers lightly brushed LaRenna’s hair. “My twin has a fetish for small ladies.” The touch sent chills down LaRenna’s spine. “Too bad for you.”

Brandoff moved closer, her mouth cold on their prisoner’s ear. “And too good for me.” She locked LaRenna’s head in her elbow then wrapped the other arm over her forehead, pulling upward so her brows drew up. “You phase me and I’ll be forced to snap your sexy neck before we get to have any fun.”

“She’s smarter than that, Brannie.” Cance pinched LaRenna’s cheek then used her thumb and index finger to hold her left eye still, the other hand pushing back the lid until the edge of the brown lens became visible. “I won’t have you sliding these into place when I ask questions,” Cance explained. “You’re just stubborn enough require a phase to ensure honesty.” She grasped the lens between her nails. “And I will get answers.”

“True answers.” Brandoff braced against the chair back and Cance yanked the lens from LaRenna’s left eye. LaRenna gasped but said nothing, even when her captor’s nails scraped the sensitive whites of her eyes.

“Now the other.” Cance repeated the procedure, LaRenna coughing from the stomach acid that bubbled in her mouth. Her eyes burned, her sniffing proving uncontrollable as bloody tears trickled from the corners of her swelling lids. Brandoff loosened the hold on her forehead to suck at the salty streaks.

“She’s juicing ripe, Cance. Can we now?”

“Work then play.” Cance patted the bar counter. “Bring her here and we’ll pull off her slippers. I want to see her markings.”

“By the time you’re finished there won’t be much worth having.” Brandoff tossed LaRenna onto the bar and stretched her across the top, all the while observant of her languid state. LaRenna wasn’t unconscious but rather listening, waiting for her chance to escape, all of which changed with Brandoff’s next words. “What’d you say to giving her a puff? Won’t be near as fun if she’s comatose.”

“She does look out of it,” her twin agreed. “A half-dose should do wonders.” And Cance shoved an inhaler into her sedate captive’s nostril.

“No!” LaRenna returned to life, kicking and screaming, launching four rapid phases at her captors that paralyzed Brandoff but only angered Cance. The mind battle that ensued was frenzied, Cance regaining control only after several physical blows to LaRenna’s midsection. As LaRenna lay gasping, Cance sat on her arms, pinned her head, and shoved the inhaler deep. “Don’t want to take you too far up. I want you and that sharp little mind of yours aware of everything that happens.” She pinched LaRenna’s nose and mouth shut, forcing the vapor into her sinuses. “Enjoy the trip.” Cance climbed from the bar and removed one of LaRenna’s slippers. LaRenna struggled against her touch, launching a scratching phase at her captors until the prock began to surge. It was the strangest sensation, drawing her to an instant orgasmic peak then plummeting her into a distorted awareness. Colors were brighter, realer, fascinating in their complexity. Why, she could see them clearly despite her eyes! She was aware her cover was blown, but didn’t care as long as the pleasure continued. It was thrilling, but so very wrong, going as quick as it came to leave her violently angry. She was rabid, screaming obscenities and twisting in attempted escape.

Cance clenched her bare foot even tighter. “Just our luck! She’s a prock virgin, Brannie. Look how it’s hitting her. Things are perfect. Perfect! Couldn’t be better if we’d planned them this way!”

“How’s that?” Brandoff, still shaking from the phase fight, had taken a seat by LaRenna’s head.

“Read these.” Cance held up LaRenna’s foot. Brandoff read the markings then leaned forward, bare inches from LaRenna’s face. “Hello there, third Kimshee daughter of Belsas Exzal. I’m Brandoff Creiloff, one of the thousand-odd sisters your bitch of a guardian raiser had heat-branded like common herd animals and banished to Trimar’s ice caves. What you’re feeling now is just a taste of what we’ve endured. Prock keeps you awake so you aren’t killed or enslaved in the Junglelands. It’s an eat or be eaten existence on Trimar.” Brandoff licked her lips. “And I’ve learned to be very hungry.” LaRenna could smell soured wine on Brandoff’s breath, feel her unkempt hair brushing her shoulder. It was disgusting and so distorted Brandoff’s actual image that LaRenna couldn’t concentrate enough for a phase.

“I know who you are,” she sputtered, in a voice far weaker than she intended. “You’re murderers without souls or morals—a smudge on the glorious Mother’s golden skirts.”

“Temper, temper,” Brandoff replied. “We just met. Don’t be so quick 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.”

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. She’s an adult capable of making her own choices. You’ve reminded me of that several times as of late, Bel.”

“But they’ve only known each other a few days.”

“You thought her competent enough to assign undercover, didn’t you?” intervened Chandrey. “Krell suits her. They’ll be good together. Besides, Krell thought enough to ask you first. That has to mean something.” Chandrey smiled at Krell. The more she could do to soften Belsas’s bluntness, the better. “Krell stuck to tradition in an age that doesn’t call for it. That in itself speaks volumes.”

“I understand the unusual nature of this call,” began Krell. “But LaRenna and I have formed a unique bond, one that I would like to pursue at length.”

“Like the one you pursued with Tatra Wileyse?” retorted Belsas.

“How do . . . ?” Krell had quite forgotten that Tatra had told everyone, anyone who would listen, that they were going to oath. “I never offered to fully bond with Healer Wileyse and we certainly never oathed.”

“Tatra’s raisers are old friends of ours,” Belsas replied. “According to them, the two of you were very close not to be oathed. Sharing a bed, I believe.”

“For a while I suppose, but I, we never—”