The light came back on, and she yelped from the intensity, blinking as the sheet of white blared across her vision. “Very well.” His clipped voice made her sit up and pay attention.
He stood from the bed and made an impatient gesture. “Get up.”
“Why?” Her heart thudded; somehow it knew this consequence would be her worst yet, and it wasn’t going to involve pain. At least not the physical kind.
“I’ll lock you in a different room. You can stay there until we arrive in Ocretian territory.” His expression was closed and stony. She saw the warrior in him now—huge, fierce. Terrifying. Not a being she’d want to cross.
Cold waves of panic ran through her. “No.” Her rational mind said she needed to stick with Rok if she wanted any chance of escape. Her heart screamed the same. Her insides had dropped to the floor, leaving her an empty shell, cold and paper-thin, ready to blow away at Rok’s next breath.
He arched a brow. “No?”
She shook from head to foot. Since her rational mind had left, she reverted to her training, dropping to her knees at his feet, bowing her head low. “Forgive me, master.”
He hauled her back up so quickly she yelped. He lifted her by her upper arms until they saw eye-to-eye, her feet dangling in the air.
“Ouch.” She squirmed. Somehow she knew this wasn’t one of the ways he meant to hurt her.
She was right. He dropped her like she’d scalded him and stepped back. His eyes burned dark purple with anger.
She wanted to rub her arms, knowing there’d be finger bruises there soon, but her bound wrists made it impossible. She tried it less formally this time. “I’m sorry, Rok. Please don’t send me from your chamber. I won’t complain of your treatment of me again.”
But that still wasn’t what he wanted to hear. He put his hand to the screen and his door slid open. “Let’s go.” The coldness in his expression cut her like a blade.
Her throat closed and her nose burned. She thrust her jaw forward. “No, I won’t go. I belong here. For your punishment.”
He remained wooden. No, stone. “Don’t feed me what you think I want to hear.”
She winced and held her breath to keep from crying. “I’m speaking the truth. You were right. I like what you do to me. Maybe too much.”
There. That was the most raw veracity she knew.
The harsh lines of Rok’s face gentled, though he didn’t move.
“My ass isn’t really sore,” she admitted. “It just looks bad. You could spank me tonight…” The heat of a flush crept up her neck.
Rok stared at her for a long moment. Then the corners of his lips twitched and he cupped her nape, dragging her against his huge, hard body and pressing his lips to her hair. “It’s not sore, hmm?”
“Not so much. A few twinges now and then.”
“I’ll punish you for that deception, too, then. Tomorrow.”
The door swished shut as he released his hold on the hand-panel. He spun her around to face the sleeping platform and forced her torso down. She held her breath, waiting. He’d said tomorrow for the spanking, so what was this? More sex?
But his huge palm clapped down on her ass, landing a flurry of spanks that sent her to her toes. Six, seven, eight. He stopped and rubbed her screaming flesh.
“Tomorrow, I’m going to fuck this pretty little ass. Teach you to mean it when you call me master.”
~.~
Rok scooped his little human onto the sleeping platform and crawled in beside her, wrapping an arm over her waist and molding her soft body against his. Despite the difference in their sizes, in their species, she nested perfectly with him.
He hit the button on the wall behind his head to extinguish the artificial light in the room. He hated that weak light—his cells longing for the crystal-amplified sunlight Zandia had featured.
“Is that why you don’t like
when I call you master?”
His chest closed, the ache every time she said that word automatic. Taraw had called him that, with complete surrender and total submission. She’d look up at him with adoration, waiting for his command.