The Keepers Book Two of the Holding Kate Series by LaDonna Cole Read Free Book Online

some towels. He handed one to Kate who draped it around Tara. Corey wrapped himself in one, and then he tucked another one around Kate. Trip listened intently now, and his eyes followed Kate and Corey’s actions.
    “Tara and I were high above the—I can’t really call it a city.”
    “Slag heap comes to mind,” Tara inserted.
    “What exactly is a slag heap?” Kate asked.
    Tara lifted the corner of her mouth. “No clue, my granny used to say that, but it sounds horrible, doesn’t it?”
    “It’s a place they pile up waste products from—” Dirk started, and then shook his head. “Never mind. Go on, Mel.”
    “So disgusting, the human deprivation. They were building something on the opposite cliff face from where we were hiding. Tall ladders were erected to reach the heights of the contraption. Slaves scaled the ladders carrying huge loads of rock or mortar.” She shivered. “About every third or fourth one would succumb to weakness and topple off of the ladders to smash on the rocks below. The task masters would push them aside and lift their burden onto the next slave’s shoulders.” Mel’s eyes watered, and she nibbled at her thumbnail, remembering the horrid conditions of that world.
    Her attention snapped to Kate and a flash of fear, and then anger registered.
    “We heard someone climbing up behind us so we hid ourselves deeper in the bushes. A group of the creatures trundled up and grunted as they watched the slaves’ backbreaking labors. We heard a female voice and peered through the bushes to see an enormous green dragon with the woman straddling him. She spat out commands to the barbarians in their language, and they left her on the edge with the dragon. Once they were gone she began speaking in English. We thought she spoke to us but realized she directed her words to the dragon. She called him by name. ‘I told you this would work. My people have a long history of slavery, and fear can elicit the most banal of responses.’”
    Her voice seemed familiar to us, but we didn’t recognize her. Completely covered in the tattoos, like the slaves, she reclined along the dragon’s neck. Up close we could see they were vile and heinous acts of perversion inscribed on every inch of her naked body. Tattoos were inlaid in her scalp, her ears, her face, every part of her. She continued speaking to the dragon. ‘He will believe they have captured me and he will give his life to save mine, and because they hate me so much, they will turn on him and revile the one they said they loved merely days before. Then we will be free to rule again.’ The dragon roared and shook open his wings and turned toward us. We got a look at the woman’s face.” Mel shivered at the memory and swiped at the tears streaming down her cheeks.
    Then it seemed we were moving forward in time, or rather time moved swiftly forward around us. The scene changed. The contraption loomed, completely built. It turned out to be some kind of torture device. They strung the man into it. The crowd, worked into a frenzy, screamed and shouted at the man who hung above them.
    The woman and her foul beast men came to the cliff edge. The woman, clamped in chains like one of the slaves, yelped as the beast on the other end yanked on her chain, toppling her backward. She muttered menacingly, ‘You idiot! If you do that again I will have Dagan eat your entrails!’ The green dragon roared at the bottom of the hill behind us in response. Then she added, ‘Now just as we rehearsed.’
    The beast man yanked her chain up into the air lifting her off her feet. She had on a belt that had been painted into her tattoos and the beast lifted her from her waist but it appeared he tried to hang her. She kicked and thrashed until the beast dropped her.
    She collapsed onto the ground making quite a scene of being ill-treated all the while giving commands to the creatures around her. The man in the torture device raved into madness watching the beasts harm her.