The Uprising (The Julianna Rae Chronicles) (10 page)

His hand gently coaxed her body into temptation, and all the while he nipped her neck, his tongue cleaning up the line of blood running down
it, and the dirty old room ceased to exist. His fingers circled the dampness between her thighs. She parted them more, and his beat quickened against her. He breathed loudly into her ear, as one hand moved and the other one held her. She looked down at her submission.

Her body gave in to his every gesture.

‘Say it.’

She said nothing.

He threw her onto her hands and knees. His fingers returned and she felt the sting of him moving in quickly, pushing inside and freezing to take in the forbidden pleasure their bodies gave, and submitting to it. He kissed where he could reach. His hand moved as he rocked in time with her. She trembled under his weight.

‘Don’t hide from me, Julianna.’ His tone made her feel the pleasure. Her body stopped rocking against him as she rode her wave and he slowed for a moment to listen to her moans.

‘Sweet, sweet, Julianna,’ he whispered. ‘But I’m not finished with you yet.’ He twirled his hand through her hair and pulled back.

His pace thrust her against the bed, pinning her between the mattress and his body, and he didn’t submit to his own satisfaction until she cried and begged him to stop.

The silence followed. Their heavy breathing was in unison as he held still, waiting to finish. She rested her eyes and his final grunt told her it was over.

Caden’s
weight left her. He studied the ceiling in his silence and caught her stare.

‘Will this get weird between us?’ he asked.

She shook her head silently and slowly and rolled onto her back.

He closed his eyes. ‘Good,’ he said quietly.

They rested shoulder to shoulder, in the moonlit room. Julianna studied the shadows dancing above the door, from the trees swaying in the breeze, outside. Daniel
was
right, how could she leave now? She didn’t have the courage to mention the connection between her and Taris with the bind they had made so long ago, their pact – the reason Taris always found her.

Caden let out a long, drawn out sigh. ‘I should take watch before Bas
tiaan wakes,’ he sat, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. ‘He’ll have my ass if I don’t.’

They were too close to the camp where Taris slept. He’d find her this close.

‘Caden,’ she called softly.

His pants obeyed his command and flew into his hands. He put one leg in, then the other and stood, frowning down at her. He buckled his belt and moved to t
he door, bending for his boots on the way out.

‘You say you have no abilities, yet you block me,’ he said quietly. ‘What’s your big secret?’

Words failed her.

‘Maybe you can tell me in the morning,’ he opened the door quietly.
‘I’ll be in when Bas relieves my watch. Sleep tight, J Rae.’ He paused to look at her and his lips thinned. ‘Thank you.’

Julianna listened to the footsteps creak along the tired floorboards and the door rattling closed, despite his effort
s for quiet. Cigarette smoke moved along the breeze and as the tears rolled silently down her cheeks she promised herself that this would never happen again.             

4th May, 2018, 0915 hours.

The Farm House, 7 miles west of Camp 2.2.1

Thwack!
             

Julianna stirred.

Thwack! Thwack!

Julianna thought the sound of a whip lashing against skin was a dream until she peered through the window. The cold reality of taking a pris
oner of war set in.

She grabbed her scattered clothes, pulling them on as she went across the floorboards, dancing, and hoping wildly about, until her pants were over her waist. She left her boots beneath the window. Pulling her singlet over her head, she ran outside, bare foot.

Caden flicked his head at the wire screen slamming. Julianna leaping down the stairs two at a time, made him prepare for the tackle she threatened with her quick pace.

‘Stop it!’ she screamed. ‘Stop it! What the hell are you doing?’

‘Go back to the house,’ Daniel said.

Caden blocked her path with his arms extended, side stepping each time she moved, defending his prisoner from her reach. She stood in his long shadow. The sun rose lazily behind him, highlighting the sky in a hue of watercolor oranges and pinks. The breeze rushed over her wet skin in a tickle of spring warmth, to gradually sway the tree branches above them.

She stood stubbornly.

Thwack!

If she could only get past.

Thwack! Thwack!

The noc yelped from the sting Bas sent across his chest. She watched a strip of flesh tear away in the same width as the belt. The hit swung the noc in the rope’s grasp, holding him above the ground. His skin looked strained under the purple bruising. 

Thwack!

His legs floundered with the pain. Bas readied the belt above his head, for another forceful blow.

‘Are you good?’ Caden asked, but if she didn’t know better, his tone was more of an order than a question and she shook her head in quiet submission.
             

To buy some time J Rae, only for some time
.

She looked at Caden’s broad shoulders blocking the sun’s cast, though they hunched in his new found moodiness. His hands still stretched out, surrounding her tiny frame, preparing to catch her tackle.

Thwack, thwack!

His shadow moved beside Bastiaan’s. She traced its edge until the morning sun made her squint, and Caden’s glare cut through her.

Caden shook his head. Daniel told her to leave again, and Bas swung his belt with a force that echoed in the wind and made the noc kick out in pain. 

Julianna surveyed the company.

Bas raised his belt. ‘You going to speak?’

The noc glanced down from where the tire swing once amused young children. There was no tire now, jus
t a body dripping, oozing slow warm trickles of blood. His pointed yellow teeth poked over his bottom lip, and he shook his head defiantly.

The noc’s dark
blood slid thickly down the belt’s leather, into the dirt. Her stomach turned but they were distracted at the disobedience before them.

She stepped between them, and the prisoner.

‘Move away!’ Caden ordered.

Her shoulders felt Caden’s large hands dig in and drag her to his side once more. Julianna supposed it was her fault, but not like this. She never asked for this. He was doing it again, forcing her into the killing zone.

She tried to think.

Bas swung the belt.

Blood beaded along the new welt. The belt licked it clean. The solid buckle connected with the prisoner’s inner thigh, embedding itself, tearing at the skin as the belt latch hooked in.

Bas pulled it back.
The skin ripped.

Blood sprayed, the prisoner screamed, and his legs thrashed wildly as the thick curdle of warmth ran fast down his nakedness, dripping from his toes.

Drip, drip, drip—

The dirt changed to a muddy brown. Her empty stomach threatened to raise any food she had left. The sour taste in her mouth was thick and she turned from the sight of his yellowish-white skin peeling away in strips, as Bas reeled his belt in for another deadly blow.

Another lash...and another, and another.

The prisoner screamed.

He’s making a nocturno scream! No
, that’s enough. It’s enough, fuck!

‘Enough!’ she yelled. Her hands were to her mouth; her eyes stared at the macabre mess.

Caden leaned into her ear. ‘If you don’t like it, go inside,’ his grip left her shoulder. ‘You
don’t
need to see this.’

‘No. This is wrong,’ she said and stepped between Bas and the prisoner.
             

He’s about to go def-con-fucking-one on my ass.

She grabbed the wet leather and recoiled from the sticky mess that slipped through her fingers, sliding down for the buckle. She ripped it away and felt the wet leather slip from his hand to hers.

Bas narrowed his eyes and shook his head at his brother, before staring down at her again.

He looked from under his furrowed brow and his eyes though not changing, displayed one thing in his mind. Her punishment. He was the High Priest again. This wasn’t new to him; this is how the family punished the belligerent. She knew first hand. She still had the scars to prove it.

‘Do something Caden. Do something, or I’ll tear her apart, so help me I’
ll rip her apart until nothing—’

She stepped closer to the noc with his belt held behind her. ‘I thought he was my prisoner, you’re torturing him.’

‘He’s a fucking prisoner of war!’ Bas yelled.

‘One that I took!’ she yelled back. ‘You’re not in the fucking family anymore!’

Caden paced with his hands running through his hair, not long enough to stick with the dirt he pushed through it. He stopped, concentrating on his stubble.

Bas lunged for the leather in her hand. She jumped as his fingertips scratched at her bare arms, moving from his reach. His eyes bore down on her. His intrusion push
ed into her mind.

And…
press play.
The music switched to a tune she hummed quietly inside her mind, blocking his invasion. It infuriated Bas, what she sung had blocked his uninvited attention.

Daniel whispered through the music. She stopped the song in her mind
, mid chorus, his warning heard.

Caden stood with h
is hand on his loose belt, tugging it free. The worn, scratched up buckle, rested comfortably in his hand.

‘Step away, Julianna. It’s the last order I’m giving you.’

‘Go on, Julianna. Stop him. Untie me. I’ll talk. I’ll sing like a bird, I will. Just let me go from these ropes,’ the noc said.

She scrutinized the prisoner’s words over her shoulder. The cuts across his body zigzagged, with little red circles raised randomly, where the belt holes had hit. They’d undressed him for the occasion, down to his underwear, for their acts of cruelty.

Thwack!             

Caden aimed his belt again. ‘I ordered you to move away!’

His scolding voice rang through her as much as the belting did. She touched the welt rising quickly across her forearm, looking up, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, with nothing to say.

‘Get inside the house,’ Daniel said lowly. ‘This isn’t for you.’

Julianna dropped the belt at Bas’s feet while Caden continued his aim.

‘This isn’t right,’ she said
. It stopped Caden raising it farther. ‘What you’re doing is totally fucked up beyond all belief.’

SNAFU, that’s what they called
it, yes SNAFU. Situation Normal: All Fucked Up.

She edged away slowly, cradling her arm, knowing her
appointed watcher would pounce if she moved too quickly. His dark expression followed her.

‘What we’re doing…
’ Bas said as he bent for his belt and snatched it from the ground with a sweeping gesture. ‘Is necessary.’

Her side glance caught Devo peering through the ripped curtains.

‘Necessary for the war, or for your satisfaction?’ She held her hands up at the sky…
you’re still doing it…stop it…they’re gonna’ bite you.
The sniggering prisoner interrupted her thoughts, she turned—

Thwack!

‘Urgh, fuck me!’ she screamed as she grabbed her waist and doubled up over the new welt. Caden’s belt licked her across the side he had offered to heal the night before. ‘Sonofabastard!’

He raised his arm again, along with his dark eyes and dark pout, the shirt sleeve fell loosely, away from the black markings of stature on his arm. Forewarned is forewarned, she thought.

Julianna looked up from the welt rising beneath the scar. He shook his head, his lip curled and he threatened her again.

‘You prefer to be next? You want me to string you up beside him too?’ The belt rose higher.

Her waist burned. 

The next person to touch it will be smashed in the face.

She stepped aside all the same, deflated before the circle of men watching her.

Fuck you C Mads, fuck you!

Caden pulled her arm back as she walked past. ‘Do you want to be next, Corporal?’

She stopped. ‘No,’ she said. Caden’s hand curled and dug deep into her skin. He wasn’t letting her go. 

‘No?’ he leaned down to her ear, ‘No, what?

‘No.
’

Asshole
.
She looked at the door to the farm house. Devo still watched them.

‘
Commander, I don’t want to be next in line for your skill in interrogation.’ She rolled her eyes. Her waist stung, her arm burned.

Are we done yet?

His hand loosened. ‘
I
will deal with you later. This won’t be forgotten.’

Their eyes met.

‘Are we clear,
Corporal
?’

She nodded and pulled her arm away. ‘I suspect we are, Commander.’ Julianna said quietly and returned to the farm house without looking back.

*   *   *

Julianna's footsteps creaked on the porch
as she swung wire screen door open to the dilapidated farm house inside. It was the first time she’d had a chance to take stock of the mismatched pieces of furniture. The living area was to one side, with its sofa, and the other side was a beaten up kitchen. 

A single kitchen counter rested off to the far wall, under a window. Through the dusty panes of glass, Julianna saw the driveway entrance, now overgrown with long grass and random saplings. The kitchen had four rows of baby blue tiles and blue and white cabinets to match. They looked out of place beside the worn floorboards of the living room, in the daylight. Julianna amused herself with the interior, as she sat where Daniel had slept, nursing her bruised arm and swollen si
de, on the old, worn green sofa, stained near her thigh, where a baby projectile vomited some time ago.

Before the world was a bitch, before the New World Order.

As she watched a bird tap madly away at the kitchen window the bedroom door creaked open. Devo stood in its archway of peeling paint and chipped wood, watching her and edging out shyly. Julianna made an effort to smile at the little girl, a far cry from her warrior ego, out on the road.

‘He does shit like that all the time,’ she finally said and nervously extended a hand to shake. ‘Devo. My real name’s Sarah but they prefer Devo. Short for Dev
eaux.’ She sat down on the stained sofa. ‘Thanks anyway. He would’ve had me spread on my back at the skirmish. Can never trust a noc.’

‘Sure,’ Julianna frowned. ‘Do you prefer Devo? You said
they
prefer it. What do you prefer?’

‘Sarah,’ she smiled nervously. ‘But it’s okay-dokey with me. They take care of me you know, like big brothers do.’

‘Sure,’ Julianna said again.
I bet they do.
She hissed at the pain in her arm when she moved her hand.
Some ice would have been good,
she thought.
Maybe the cold water from the lake.
‘Do your big brothers hit you like that?’

‘Only when they’re pissed at me for something stupid,’ she gave a toothy grin.

Julianna thought she was stunning. Real model material if there were such a thing anymore. Star would love her running the tables, she knew that much.

‘Sooo,’ she cooed. ‘You staying with us? Could really use the girl comp
any since my sister, since she—’

‘Yeah, about that, I’m sorry about Katherine. She s
aved my life in Sector One the—’

‘Yeah, Bas
told me.’ Devo nodded her head, bobbing it like one of those bobble dolls found in the Taxi’s when they were still around.
‘I miss her.’

Please, don’t start crying, Julianna prayed.
Please don’t, please don’t, please don’t
. Julianna winced at the thought and pushed back the sting in her own eyes. Everything was at risk, teetering on the edge of emotional breakdown. She needed to hold it together just for a little longer, until the numbness settled in again.