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He gives me a little shake. “Do you want to be handled roughly, Raine? Is that it? Do you need pain and fear in order to feel normal?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
I hear a little gasping giggle from Sullivan. I don’t know if that’s because she thinks it is funny to talk to these massive dinosaur aliens this way, or because she’s laughing at the fact I just got myself into even more trouble. I said it because he won’t be psychoanalyzing me. I refuse to be psychoanalyzed. I don’t want to be understood. I want to be feared. It’s much easier for me if everybody thinks I’m a potentially dangerous psychopath.
“I will not tolerate your disrespect,” Avel warns me.
“You’re never going to get my respect, so I don’t see what choice you have.”
I’m ready to fight him. My hand is itching for a weapon that isn’t there. This alien might be massive and powerful. He might even be able to fly, but a good laser weapon is a hell of an equalizer. If I had just a single sidearm, this conversation would be going very, very differently.
“You think smacking my ass is going to make me give up and do as you say?” I laugh at him. “Sullivan might be that kind of woman, but I’m not. I’m not a drone. I was made this way naturally.”
“You might be a warrior,” he says. “I have no doubt of your courage. I have seen it displayed. But a good warrior knows when to yield.”
“I will never yield to you.”
He draws in a breath and gives a curt nod. I get the feeling he does not know what to do with me. Perhaps he wishes to beat me into submission. If so, he will have to do a lot more than smack me once. And even then, he will fail. I have been beaten before.
“Let us see.”
Avel
I knew it was something of a risk to bring my mate here. I knew there was some tension between her and the captain she betrayed. I never imagined she would indulge in such outright public rebellion.
“Please tell me you have a switch,” I say to Thorn.
“Oh, I have a great many things,” he says. “Sona. Bring the punishment tools.”
“At once,” Sona says.
Raine is squirming in my grasp, but I have no intention of letting her go. She’s going to be punished for this, because she needs to be. She needs to know that I mean it when I tell her to behave, and she needs to understand that public misbehavior leads to public punishment.
Shifting my grip, I bend her over the table in front of me and snatch the dress from her body. There is plenty of room between the plates, and as Sona returns with a small collection of paddles, lashes, and straps, he clears the dining table so there is plenty of room for what is about to ensue. Raine is squirming, her dark glossy hair flowing in a gorgeous skein over her curvy, soft human body. I can feel the tension in her, and I can see it too in the way her musculature contracts and relaxes beneath my large palm. She is just so soft. So smooth. So very much like prey in her appearance, and yet so predatory in her behavior.
She can hide the most intimate parts of herself with the table, which will ensure she doesn’t do anything stupid like get up and try to walk away. There will be no escaping from this punishment. She will be stuck here until I see fit to restore her modesty.
I am not well pleased. Thorn is not taking the matter overly seriously. He finds these human females amusing in their unpredictable ways. There is certainly something very hot-blooded about them. They are rarely predictable. But Raine still knows better than to behave this way. She has to be testing me. Seeing if I will do what I say. Seeing if there are any cracks in my armor, as it were. If she learns that there are some situations in which I will show her mercy, she will start pushing the limits every chance she gets.
I pick up a thick wooden ruler. It will be enough to make an impression, but not so cruel it will turn her into a sobbing mess. That will come later.
“I told you to behave yourself,” I lecture her. “And you went out of your way to antagonize our hosts. That kind of rudeness will not be tolerated. Do you understand?”
“Whatever,” she mumbles into the table.
It strikes me as a juvenile and disrespectful response, so I strike her in return, landing a solid swat with the flat of the wooden implement and creating a bright red stripe where it lands. It alone will not be enough to put her in the mood for atonement, but it is a start.
“Whatever? That is no kind of apology, Raine. I want to hear you say sorry to both the alpha and his mate.”
“Sorry to both the alpha and his mate,” she repeats, dutifully, her tone holding not a single note of contrition.
It is not often that someone does both precisely as I say, and still manages to behave like a disrespectful brat at the same time, but she has managed the feat.
It earns her three solid strokes, one above the first line, one below it, and a hard one right in the center, overlaying the first one perfectly. The result is a deepening red line in the middle and two lighter ones above and below. It is very satisfying, both the sight of it, and the resulting mewling yelps she produces.
“Again, and try to mean it this time.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, begrudgingly. There is something ever so petulant about her tone. She sounds like a recalcitrant whelpling being disciplined. Usually those who come under my lash are a lot more effusive about their apologies. But I am being much kinder to her than I would be to any of them. There is a softness about me when it comes to Raine that no other living being has ever, or will ever experience.
