Free Breaking Brandi by Stacey St. James Page A

a
stone altar stood in the center of the chamber. Instead of leading
her to it, however, she was seized by the two priests who had
walked beside her as they descended the stairs. Dragging her beyond
the altar, they forced her down on the stone floor in the center of
a circle made up of different colored stones. The stone was cold
beneath her and she began to shiver as they knelt and removed the
manacles that bound her wrists together.
    Each man took one of her arms and pulled it
straight out from her body, manacling her directly to the stone
floor. They moved down her then. A third man approached, carrying a
wedge shaped stone, and knelt beside her hips. The two who were
binding her for the offering lifted her hips. The wedge was pushed
beneath her buttocks. When she was lowered once more, she realized
that it had curled her hips upward. Catching her legs then, they
bent them at the knees and spread her legs wide, chaining her
ankles to the floor.
    She lay staring up at the ceiling, shivering
from dread and the cold, trying not to think what they planned to
do, listening to her heart hammering in her ears and the breath
rasping from her chest in frightened gasps.
    The High Priest came to stand between her
legs. He lifted his arms to chant.
    The priests dropped their robes and advanced
toward the circle where she had been chained. When they reached the
outer ring of the circle, they began to chant and dance in a circle
around her, writhing, moving their arms sinuously. After a time,
the chanting began to sound more like the hissing of serpents than
voices. As she watched, they knelt to the floor and then lay upon
their bellies, moving around her with the sinuous, undulating
movements of serpents, resembling huge snakes.
    Their bizarre behavior threw her into
complete confusion. Just as she’d begun to think she understood—to
a degree—what their religion was all about, they thoroughly
befuddled her again.
    The god Nhewa was the god of all things that
walked and crawled on this horrible planet, she guessed?
    Maybe.
    Did it really have to make sense? It
was a religion. It was nonsense from beginning to end, superstition
perpetuated by someone who wanted to benefit from the power it gave
them and the fear it engendered in everyone they subjugated.
    One moved toward her, dragging her reluctant
attention back to the proceedings as he undulated around her,
flicking his tongue over her breast until her nipple grew turgid,
standing erect. He bit down on it, drawing a gasp from her. She
relaxed fractionally when she felt no more than a twinge of pain,
but even as he moved away again she wondered if the next bite would
actually hurt, or the one after that. She knew once it began that
it would continue much the same and feared once the fever was fully
upon them that they would begin to bear down on her harder each
time, biting her in truth rather than merely simulating a bite.
    Goosebumps erupted all over her at the
thought.
    As he left, another approached her from the
other side, flicking his tongue over belly, nipping her flesh
before he moved on. Both fear and heat surged inside her as another
approached her, flicked his tongue over her other nipple and then,
lightly, bit down on her, raking his teeth along the distended tip
before he released it and moved away. Within moments, she felt them
all over her, felt the flicking of their tongues over her skin,
felt the sting of their teeth nipping her. Sometimes it bordered on
pain, occasionally one bit her hard enough to draw a gasp from her,
but she began to relax as pleasure began to far outweigh the
discomfort and even the harder nips with sharp teeth sent heat
spiraling into her belly.
    She closed her eyes, but that only seemed to
focus her mind more surely on the sensations flooding her. Her head
began to swim as the drugging euphoria of bliss sucked her
down.
    Despite the clouding of her mind, she tensed
as she felt the heated flick of a tongue along one thigh. The
licking moved