Free Dare to Defy by Breanna Hayse

their site to bed her down.
    “Why must you continue this way, Princess? You drink spirits every evening now,” he finally asked, his voice weak from fatigue.
    “Cannot stop the dreams from coming,” Daynel mumbled into her arm, shaking her head. “They play over and over again. He is always there…he frightens me.”
    “The dreams are trying to speak to you. You need to listen to them, not run.”
    Daynel looked into his sunken, dark eyes, meeting them knowingly. He looked exhausted, probably from staying awake for hours on end worrying about her. She felt a rush of shame for how she had treated her kind guide. Before she could say anything, she screwed her body to the side to spew the contents of her stomach. Baldric shook his head, holding her hair from her face as her body rejected the intake of the evening. He handed her a water skin as he gently sponged off her forehead.
    “You must cease this behavior,” he said softly, holding the water to her trembling lips. “The gods are displeased and are being pressed into punishing you.”
    “What? Are they going to ‘warm my sit-upon’?” Daynel laughed miserably. “No one except Günter does that. And he, less than a handful in my lifetime.”
    “It is something you have required for many years,” Baldric said. “You feel safety in pain.”
    “I most certainly do not,” Daynel spat, glaring at him.
    “You are chosen to lead us, Princess. The opening of the Eye,” he glanced at her sword, “and the heartbeat of the fang proves this. Pain is needed for you to feel, for the power to be released into you. You will be a priestess of our people and…”
    “And I’m not the only one who’s been sipping the wine. Go to sleep!” Daynel snapped. She closed her eyes and ignored the sound of his chanting as he placed the spell over her vulnerable body and spirit again. She frowned as he begged the gods for intervention, the last words heard before she drifted away in the world of sleep.
    It was in this world that she walked now, along a wide path that seemed to narrow as she went on. The expanse of the world around her became tall walls, and she felt as though she was being pressed in and forced to continue down an unfamiliar hallway. She reached a door and opened it, squeezing her shoulder through the frame. One step inside and she felt her wrist being grabbed by thick, sinewy vine. She pulled against it, struggling to escape its grip. A second vine whipped around her, snatching her other wrist, pulling her further back into a dark chamber. Two more vines entwined themselves about her ankles and Daynel felt panic well within her. Release me! she screamed, but no sound was heard. What is this that is happening to me?! Where is my Dragon Warrior?! She fought helplessly against the rough creepers, her struggle useless as she was dragged over the top of a large, rounded saddle rack. She battled for release, only to feel the tendrils that held her in place tighten firmly and work their way around her waist and the backs of her knees.
    Daynel yelled out in frustration and fear as the vines slipped over her body and under her clothing. Without effort, they tugged the soft cloth from her lower half, leaving her bottom and the backs of her thighs naked and vulnerable. She screamed as the tendrils gripping her ankles widened her stance, allowing the slithering branches to slip between her thighs and probe her nether parts. One vine worked its way into her bottom hole, wiggling and seating itself before it began to slowly thicken, stretching her tiny orifice uncomfortably. Daynel cried out, the intrusion to her private place both humiliating and distasteful. She began to release a string of words that was only spoken by whores and those who worked on the docks. Words that were shortly followed by a yelp of pain as one vine raised high and slashed across the span of her white bottom. Daynel’s eyes widened in shock, her ability to actually feel the lash upon her body