“Do you understand why you’re being punished, bitch?”
“Yes, sir,” she said softly, seeming like she didn’t give a shit.
“Tell me why you’re being punished.”
“For disrespecting you, sir. I apologize.”
She didn’t look sorry.
“And for disrespecting my wife.”
“Yes, sir. My apologies for disrespecting your wife.”
The way she said wife was like it was a foul word.
“Does she seem sorry enough, beautiful precious wife? Should we skip the punishment?” he asked me.
I opened my mouth but my voice failed me.
“Answer me truthfully or you’ll get a punishment, too, my baby. And not one of those ones you like.”
“She doesn’t seem sorry, Master. But, I think we should sk---”
“Whip her. We’re not skipping,” he cut me off.
I was frozen.
“Now, Angel.” The authority in his voice gave me no choice but to comply, “And don’t just whip her. I want you to break her.”
I lashed out and caught her thigh, leaving a red mark.
She barely flinched. I looked at her face. Her face was like stone, but her eyes were filled with hate.
She was enthralled with Donavan Frost? All the time she’d supposedly spent with him before me would mean she could take the pain of a whipping. My attempts to whip her were probably laughable to her.
He couldn’t come unless he was hurting someone while he came and while the whip wasn’t his favorite with me, he used it on her a lot, according to Kruna lore. She could withstand a whole lot more than my sad attempts. I’d heard that he’d been credited with toughening her up substantially when he was first promoted to the role Gan Chen how had. No way would I be able to break her.
“Again,” Dare ordered.
I did it again and caught her stomach. She grunted in a way that Dare might think was pain but I knew that grunt. She thought I was a joke.
A bright red mark was left behind.
“How do you feel about the things she did to you, Angel?”
“I…” I was having trouble forming a coherent sentence in my brain, never mind on my tongue.
“Tell her!” Dare demanded, anger in his voice.
“I hated it. She was horrible.”
“What did she do?”
“She screamed in our faces, she beat us, humiliated us. And worse.”
“Wasn’t that just her job?” he asked, “Strike her again.”
I pulled my right fist up to my left shoulder and then thrust the whip at her and it was harder this time, leaving a bigger mark across her hip. She was holding her breath, gritting her bared teeth, still looking at me like I was sludge beneath her feet.