Free Salvation by Aeon Igni Page B

bags. "I'm reporting for duty on another ship. He won't care what you do to me." I looked around, but all of the vendors had magically disappeared and other bystanders were keeping their distance. Great, I thought, just like old times. No one had ever helped me with Raz's thugs, either.
    His hissing laughter sent shivers do wn my spine, and his crew joined in.
    " Sss, sss, sss. Ssure. But thesse familial dissputess passs with time. Bessidess, I think I can make him care...when I begin ssending your body partss back to him...one by one."
    Even I knew when to run, so I dropped my duffel and tried to sprint around him, but it was no use. There were at least six of them and I got about thirty feet before I was shoved against a shop wall and felt claws biting into my shoulder. Then I felt a pain in my neck and everything went black.
     
    I awoke to find my hands chained above my head. There was a burning pain in my shoulders and I wondered about infection from reptilian claws. The thought was fleeting because I heard a sound from behind me.
    " Ahhh, you are awake." Angorak walked around me and held out his hands as if in welcome. I tried not to roll my eyes. This was a criminal psychopath if I ever saw one.
    " Are you looking for a standing ovation, Angorak? What are you going to do to me?" I tried to keep my voice from wavering. I didn't want him to think Morse's son was a pansy.
    " Sss, sss, sss. Ssuch a mouth you have. I ssupposse it makess up for...other thingss." He looked disdainfully at my small form. "But, ass to your quesstion, firsst, I am going to torture you...with the lassh." He held up a long whip and fingered it lovingly. "I know, it iss a crude and traditional weapon, but I find that I prefer the traditional methodss." He gestured behind him and I saw an array of axes, saws, snippers, and other things I didn't know the names for. At that moment, I was grateful for the lash.
    He walked over to me and ran his claws gently down my back. "I find it bringss a certain...clossenesss...between myself and my...prissoner." With that last word he allowed his claws to penetrate my skin at the base of my spine and I gasped.
    Then, without saying anything more, he raised the whip and began flicking it against me. I bit my lip as the whip hit me time and again. But surprisingly, it was a pain I could take.
    Then the blows slowly got harder, until I knew he was breaking the skin. Each lash burned, and my skin had already been sensitized by the earlier strokes of the whip. I bit my lips until they bled. I wasn't going to give this reptile the satisfaction of hearing me scream. Plus, I knew if I screamed, I would sound like a girl.
    Finally, he paused and walked around so I could see him. " Sso quiet, youngling."
    "I'm not going to give you the satisfaction, Angorak," I grated.
    "Sss, sss, sss. You mean because you haven't sscreamed? Don't worry, runt, that iss becausse I haven't been trying to make you sscream—yet."
    My brain didn't have time to make sense of that last comment before he picked up the lash and whipped me once. I wasn't expecting it so I cried out.
    "You ssee, runt," he hissed, "It'ss much worse…" thwak "…when you aren't expecting it."
    He lashed me a few more times at varying intervals, each lash landing unexpectedly. To my shame, I cried out each time, despite my resolve. Then he suddenly lashed me on my stomach and I couldn't stop my body from writhing madly, trying to get out of the chains.
    He laughed and waited until my writhing had subsided to whip me again. I knew my shirt was already in tatters from his whipping of my back, and when a lash hit across the tops of my breasts and my shoulders, part of my shirt and the bindings fell down, baring my right breast.
    Angorak drew back when he saw it, hissing angrily. "What is thiss? A female?" His eyelids opened and closed rapidly and I could tell he was thinking about what to do.
    Finally, h e flicked the lash one more time across my stomach with a