Bryn palmed her ass, his fingers stretching out to almost cover both cheeks and leaned down toward her. She was pinned on the bed with one of his massive hands on her neck, the other on her rear, his growling visage drawing nearer to her own, his breath hot against her face.
Her lips parted as his mouth descended toward hers. Eighteen years old and she’d never been kissed. She’d been saving herself for someone special. She’d been saving herself for Bryn. Perhaps for this moment. Had she finally broken him? Would his powerful hips surge forward and his masculine flesh sword pierce her depths?
“Naughty lass,” he growled, his lips just barely brushing hers, so fleetingly it could have been an accident. She felt his hand leave the back of her neck and curl around her throat. Now they were in the realm of the wrong and the taboo. Now she was spreading her thighs, or would have if she were not hobbled by the tight breeches keeping her feminine places secret. It would not take much to expose them. Just an inch and she could be available to him…
“Take me,” Hail whimpered against his lips.
Bryn came to his senses with a sudden snap. What was he doing? She was in his care! What had begun as a well deserved punishment was turning into a seduction, one that could not be tolerated.
His cock throbbed against the leather holding it in place. Every masculine instinct he had was telling him to free himself and push inside her. Every honorable thought in his mind was telling him he had already gone too far.
He pulled back regretfully and looked down at his punished whelp. Her hindquarters were pleasingly full and marked to great satisfaction, hand marks and fingerprints visible at the edges of the disciplined area. She had gotten everything she deserved, and nothing more. Her disobedience had not earned her a ravaging. It did not merit the taking of her purity. That was for her husband. One day, this bratty whelp would be a respectable member of New Rahvin society. She would marry one of the young men, have babies, and be happy. That was what Bryn wanted for all the orphans who came into his care: a family.
“Pull your britches up, lass,” he growled, his voice thick with unrequited lust.
“Really?”
“Unless you want a taste of this lash.”
She reached back and pulled her pants back up again, covering the bare rounds of her ass. They were tight fitting enough to present her rear in almost as alluring light as it had been when it was bared, possibly more for making him have to remember what she looked like with her leathers down, her quivering red cheeks holding pert sway over the rest of her curvy little form.
Hail sat up, or tried to. She emitted a squeal as her ass touched the coverlet and bounded immediately up onto her toes, her hands going back to reflexively cover her hide. Her lips formed a pretty red ‘O’, and her eyes went wide, green flecks dancing in the candlelight, red locks flying as she registered her surprise.
“Felt that, did you, lass,” Bryn smiled. She was cute. And she was still a whelp in so very many ways—even if she had looked every inch a woman not moments earlier.
“Of course I felt it, you meant me to, didn’t you. And you used some kind of charm on your hand, I bet. I can still feel the sting.”
“You’ll feel the sting for a good long while, no charms necessary,” Bryn replied, trying his best to look stern and hide the smile which almost always wanted to rise to his face when he dealt with this sassy little madam. “And don’t think about using spells or potions to relieve it either.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she lied to his face.
He looked at her a moment longer, tried to work out which side of the cusp of womanhood she was on. Eighteen years may have been a convention, but having met that milestone meant little to him. And even if it had, he was more than twice her age. She was not destined for somebody like him. He just had to get her through this late rebellion and find a mate for her. Someone who could handle her. That would not be easy.
“Please, Hail. Be careful with yourself,” he said more gently.
“I am careful.”
“No. You’re not. You’re reckless. You act as though you have an infinite number of lives, that you could simply start over if you were to lose yours. You only have one existence.”
She looked at him with all that youthful obstinacy. “I know. That’s why I want to make it count.”
Three
Master of Whelps
Bryn walked through the streets of New Rahvin with a careful, yet commanding gait. Everybody knew who he was. Guild Master of the Lyrakin. Father of whelps. And other names by which he no longer went. Dead names, not to be whispered by even the most intrepid and intimate of others.