Pharaoh takes the matter of obedience out of the equation. He scoops me up over his shoulder and he carries me out of the library, and into a big bedroom a few doors away.
“Mattias!” I call out, but he does not come. I hear male chuckling as I am drawn away to what must surely be the ravaging that has been coming for a long time. After all I have been through, the market, the sheriff, in the end, this was always coming. My resistance has only managed to get me as far as a man I could not avoid, hurt, or kill.
The bed is huge and expansive and... round. I am confused by it enough that when Pharaoh puts me dead in the middle of it, on my knees. The others stand around the bed, forcing me to turn to look at them when they speak.
It is Tore who begins laying down the law. His ice blue eyes lock on me. I instinctively want to look at the muscular wall of male flesh, but I can’t, because this big Norse beast demands I give him all of my attention.
“Do you know why we chose the four of us to have you first?”
“Drew straws?”
My attempt at flippancy falls flat.
“We are the four most equipped to tame a mouthy little girl and show her how to be a woman. You are unbroken, Trissa. You are wild and you are untamed. And that will not do. When we are done with you, you will know how to behave.”
I bite my lower lip.
“First of all, you will call each of us sir,” Tattoo Face says.
“Nope.”
There’s no amusement in any of their faces at my bold defiance.
“Second of all, you will know us by our names. I am Keanau, this is Tore, as you know. The man you called Gladiator is Alexios, and the one you called Pharaoh is Mark.”
“Pharaoh is a better name,” I argue smartly. I know I should be quiet. I know I should agree to whatever they say. My butt is still stinging from when Mattias spanked me, but there is something inside me that just won’t let me quietly agree to them and their terms. I have to fight.
They shoot looks at one another.
“Anyone object now?” Tore asks the question of the others. Apparently they had some discussion about what to do with me. Apparently, I’ve managed to make whatever Tore suggested palatable to them.
“No. Go ahead,” Keanau sighs, making a gesture with his big meaty hand.
Tore sits down on the bed, reaches for me, and takes me by the back of the head, his fingers curling in my long blonde hair. He slowly, but firmly pulls me toward him, and then over his hard lap.
“Your spirit is impressive,” he tells me. “But your mouth isn’t. I want respect out of you, Trissa. I want obedience. I know you don’t know how to behave yet, but you will learn tonight. How much that hurts is up to you.”
Held over his thighs, I want to squirm and curse at him, but there’s a warning in being held like this. My ass is vulnerable. I try to be good, quiet, but that is too little, far too late.
Tore’s hand glides across my upturned cheeks, then slips away and returns with a sharp slap.
“Ow! Please! Ow! I already got spanked!”
“But the lesson obviously didn’t take,” Tore says. “This is for the attitude.”
“I’m not giving you attitude!”
“Yes, you are,” he says, rubbing my bottom once, before slapping it hard again. The sound is like a gunshot echoing around the room, and my plaintive cry afterward sounds pitiful. “I want to hear you calling me sir. I want to hear you thanking me for this spanking.”
“Why the fuck would I... ow!”
Tore releases a barrage of hard, heavy slaps that make me scream out with shock and sudden pain.
The slaps Mattias gave me before are nothing compared to this. This hurts. This is pain searing through my bottom and finding every nerve in my body. I scream and writhe and wail. I kick and I squirm, but his arm is strong enough to hold me in place and make me take every single one of those vicious swats.
“Stop it! Stop it now!”
“I’ll stop when you call me sir.”