Charlotte Boyett-Compo- WIND VERSE- Prisoners of the Wind Read Online Free PDF

her
mind.”
    “Is that what you have been doing to her over these past
weeks?” McGregor asked. “I thought you were simply frightening her with those
sublims. Have you been mentally seducing her instead?”
    Drae let go of one arm of the chair and held his hand before
his friend. He waggled his fingers then closed his fist until only one
finger—the middle—remained rigid. “With this, aye!”
    Kale groaned. “You are playing with fire, my friend. If you
mate with her—”
    “It won’t be mating,” Drae stressed. “It will be revenge.”
    “But—”
    “But nothing!” the Tiogar snapped. He stood up. “Is the Sobek ready to transport her friends to Fiáin tomorrow morning?”
    “Aye, but, Taegin—”
    “Then make sure they are onboard and dropped off first
thing. I don’t need them onboard the Revenge while I’m doing what needs
to be done. It’s best she has no friends here to whom she can turn.”
    “Where is she now?” McGregor asked, giving up trying to
argue with his captain.
    “In an isolation cell where she will remain until I am done
with her,” Drae replied.
    Staring into his friend’s eyes, Kale knew it would be futile
to try reasoning with Taegin Drae. The Tiogar was in charge—not the man—and the
Tiogar would have his vengeance.
    “What if they balk at leaving without her? The Tribunal made
it clear they weren’t to be harmed in any way.”
    “Sedate them,” Drae snapped. “Use one of the heavy-duty
neuroleptors Healer Tuat devised. That will put their asses out so they can’t
give you any shit.”
    Kale sighed deeply. “It will take three days out and three
back for me to transport the women to Fiáin.” He frowned. “How close are you to
Conversion?”
    Drae drew himself up to his full six-foot-four-inch height
and stared at his 2-I-C, ignoring the question. “You’d best be hitting the
rack, Mister. I want the Sobek out of here by 0500 tomorrow morning. Is
that clear?”
    “Aye, aye, sir,” McGregor acknowledged listlessly. He got up
from his chair and headed for the corridor.
    “Don’t worry, Kale,” Drae said, slapping his friend on the
back as he walked alongside him. “I’ll see that she enjoys her ravishment!”
    Long after McGregor had left, Drae remained in the rec room.
He stood at the sweeping bank of windows and stared out into the black velvet
swatch of space, seemingly mesmerized by the streaks of passing stars on the
fabric of the heavens. His arms crossed over his chest, he stood with his legs
apart, a muscle working in his jaw.
    It was the dreams, the sublims, which he had been
transmitting to Marin over the past few weeks that occupied his thoughts. Each
one had been carefully planned, calculated with just the right amount of erotic
content, the most vivid of images and sensations. His intent had been to make
her his willing slave, in need of what her midnight lover could provide, and he
knew he had succeeded his wildest dreams. He had conquered her easily and then
had made her his.
    “The Madras don’t need men, eh?” he whispered to the ebon
vista stretching out before him. “They don’t require what a man can give.”
    He closed his eyes and sent his thoughts winging through
time and space until it came to a mind seething with hatred, with
all-encompassing power, and there he allowed an insidious tendril to weave its
way through that murky mentality and plant a seed, dropping the kernel in the
seething depths where it would take root and spread.
    “Who are you?” he heard the shout of disgust and
smiled grimly, opening his eyes to stare blankly out the window.
    It was a brutal mental image he had sown in Neala Acet’s
enraged brain—an image of her innocent daughter lying spread upon a stained,
disheveled bed, her nude body helpless to disembodied hands that plucked and
twisted her naïve young flesh, left deep scratches bubbling with blood on her
soft belly and breasts. He added sound to the picture—grunting,