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 Get to the frame, he commanded, barely sparing her a glance.
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Brietta did as she was told, knowing what was coming and trying to prepare herself as best she
could as he immobilized her against that staunch wooden apparatus.
But there was no way that she could prepared herself for the severity of the beating he
administered. That awful rod was thin and flexible, and it whistled through the air before each stroke hit
her, giving her time to realize that another stroke was going to fall, allowing just enough time for her to
agonize and dread the inevitable. Occasionally, he would pause in his unbearable rhythm only long
enough to make it sing several times, so that she would never really know when the beating would begin
again, when the rod s next scream would initiate her own as it bit unforgivingly into her tender flesh.
Sometimes, he would follow his pauses by molesting her, pressing himself up against her welted
back and reaching around to milk and pinch her breasts obscenely and rubbing his engorged self against
her tortured bottom, as if in promise of things to come.
By the time he was through, there was barely an inch of her backside that wasn t covered in raise,
angry red weals, some of which were rapidly turning purple and black. Without another word, he cut her
down and lay her on the blanketed ground on which she usually slept, forcing her legs apart and himself
inside her in nearly the same motion. Brietta s unbound hands came up to try to push him away, but his
hissed,  Think of your brother before you do that made her clenched her fists as he drove into her,
grinding her bottom into the rough fabric beneath her.
She lay there beneath him, praying that she could close her eyes and all of this would go away.
 You re not living up to your end of the bargain, wench. If I wanted to fuck a corpse I would. Do
you really value your brother s life so little?
Brietta opened her tear filled eyes and read the savageness in his. It took everything in her to
wrap her arms around him and lift her hips to his, to pretend that she was enjoying this brutal rape. She
kept Dirce alive in her mind the entire time, hoping against hope that he was still alive.
In Brietta s mind, it took him forever to cry out his release and spill his seed into her unwilling
body. For Lucius, the end came  as it always seemed to with her alone  embarrassingly quickly. He lay
atop her for a long while, trying to get his breathing  as well as his recently unruly emotions  under
control.
He hadn t intended on reacting that way to seeing her in her brother s embrace. He didn t doubt
that they were siblings  they looked very much alike  but regardless of their familial connection, he hated
seeing Valeria in any man s arms. He d never been seized but such jealousy in his life  he d never felt
about a woman the way he felt about Valeria, and he didn t like it. She made him feel both weak and
strong at the same time, and Lucius wasn t used to being confused by his own feelings. Women had their
place in his life  to ease his sexual needs. He d never wanted any woman to be anything else to him.
Except her. A woman who was  by birth  beneath him. A barbarian. Willful, strong, and
brave, to be sure, but a barbarian none the less. Not really worthy of anything besides a quick toss onto
her backside. Yet he wanted so much more from Valeria  he wanted more from her than he could admit
to himself. Even his little bargain with her didn t really bring him what he wanted  he knew her
motivation was purely love of her brother. That when her arms slipped around his neck when he was
pumping in and out of her, that she was only doing it to save a man she loved. Not because she had any
feelings for him other than fear and loathing.
Lucius stiffened his back and rolled off her, standing to don a flowing robe and say something to
the guards outside. Seconds later, a new couch had replaced the old one, and Valeria hadn t so much as
moved to cover herself from the curious and lusty stares of his men. She lay there on her side, looking for
all the world like a Greek statue of the ultimate in womanhood come alive  except for the vivid, raise
welts that covered her from hips to mid-calf.
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She was his. He owned her. She was nothing but a slave, would never be anything but he made
of her. That was her lot in life  and his. The sooner he accepted it, the better.
Recent intelligence reports suggested that Hallobert s Keep  from whence both his prisoner and
his slave hailed  was a hotbed of rebellion, that it was the origin of all of the raids that the camp and Army
had been suffering. Lucius commander had tasked him with the job of routing the rebels, and he had
decided yesterday exactly how he was going to do it.
Lucius had discerned that Dirce was the head of the rebels by studying him and the other
prisoners. Whenever Dirce was taken anywhere, the other prisoners called to him in their tongue, asking
him for orders and directions. They deferred to him and sought his counsel about what they should be
doing  escaping, complying, lying elaborately when questioned - in the evenings, when no one else was
around except Lucius guards, who had been taught the crude Anglo-Saxon tongue for just such
situations.
He knew that Valeria s father and grandfather lived at the keep, and that Dirce was the heir
apparent to his father s holdings. He also knew from other sources that both the son and daughter of
Camlin were held in very high esteem by both the villagers and the castle inhabitants. He hoped that [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]