He unfolds his arms, crooks one large finger at me, his voice a low, dangerous purr.
“Come here.”
I don’t have a choice, do I? I walk to him on wobbly legs, shaking as he watches every step. When I reach him, the light reflects in his green eyes. Still stern. Still immovable. But there’s something more in those depths now. Curiosity?
“It would go well for you if you do exactly what I say.”
I nod. “You’re about twice my size and have a bag of weapons. It would be rather foolish of me to try anything else.”
“It was rather foolish of you to run away.”
I clench my jaw and don’t answer. He has a point, goddammit.
Wordlessly, he reaches for my wrists and shackles them in his strong fingers. Holding me in his tight grip, he looks to the post with the rings above it, then to the table and shakes his head, as if dismissing the notion. Not the post, then. If he weren’t so strong, I might feel relieved. I’m sure that thing’s a whipping post.
“Right, then,” he mutters. “You’ll lay over the table.”
I balk, my mouth slackening as I stare at him.
“Excuse me?” I whisper. It hadn’t occurred to me he could violate me in this room. Bent over the table, he could rape me easily.
“You have thirty seconds,” he says. “Or I’ll do it for you.”
“My future husband will not be pleased with this, you know,” I say, my words tight with anger. “I’m to be married after I’m punished.” A lump forms in my throat at the prospect of my impending humiliation.
“I’m not going to fuck you. I’m going to flog you.”
I shudder.
He glances at his watch. “Twenty more seconds.”
I don’t bother to wipe the tears that stream down my cheeks. I’m not trying to appease or persuade him. If I grin and bear it, as the saying goes, he doesn’t win. He might beat me, but he won’t take my pride.
I stalk to the table, flop my body down on it, and close my eyes. Embracing my anger. If I wear it like a cloak, he can’t hurt me. Nothing lasting, anyway.
I’m shaking, my body trembling against the cool table, splayed out like this… like an offering. I listen for the sound of something, the tug of the zipper on his bag, something at all that will indicate how he’s to punish me. But all I hear is his voice.
“You’ve earned this for what you’ve done. Your reckless, thoughtless decision endangered the lives of countless. What do you have to say for yourself?”
Must he lecture so?
Anger is my weapon and friend.
“Fuck. You.”
Crack.
The blistering pain sears me.
“Silence now.”
I grit my teeth. Did he strike me with his… hand?
“If you want me to be silent, don’t ask me questions.”
Crack. He lands another blow, then another, until he’s given me so many hard, blistering swats, I lose count. I whimper, biting my tongue. I’m an idiot to mouth off to a man his size, who’s got everything from power and strength to weapons on his side.
I gasp when his rough, toughened hand caresses my inflamed backside, and he leans his heavy, muscled body against me so he can whisper in my ear. His rumbling voice makes me shiver.
“I’ve been sent in here to punish you before I deliver you to your future husband. I won’t mark you. I won’t deliver damaged goods. But I want this to make a good impression. You’re to obey your future husband. Consider this your first lesson.”
I still. It’s an odd thing for someone sent by Martin to punish me to say.
Did the rival Clan send him to me, then?
A terrible, alarming thought resurfaces.
Will he rape me as punishment?
But no… no, he can’t. My future husband expects a virgin. We were never allowed even unsupervised dates as teens, and my father was adamant: his daughters would stay untouched until they married. It wasn’t until he married off my oldest sister that I knew why.
My new husband will have to take my virginity... Still, I’m not safe here.
Why did he send the others away? Does he mean to violate me?
And then I hear it, the sound I’ve been dreading, the whirr of a zipper. Oh, God, he’s going to fuck me.
“If you rape me, my future husband will kill you.”
He doesn’t respond.
I look to the side and breathe out in relief. It wasn’t his zipper but the bag’s.
My relief is short-lived when I hear the clink of metal. I grip the table and grit my teeth, preparing myself mentally for what’s going to happen. I’ve withstood worse. I likely may still. I can do this. And then pain explodes and my mind erases with the first excruciating crack of something against my skin.
I cry out in pain, but I can’t get away. I twist and writhe, but his firm hand on my lower back holds me in place, delivering one wicked blow after another. I can’t think beyond the pain, and even my breath seems frozen in space and time as I drown in pain. He’s lecturing, the fucker, prattling on and on about orders and rules and war and blah blah blah, but I can’t process a thing he says. My world is agony.