Page 13 of The Shadow Sanctum

When the first slap of leather against my lower back comes, my ass clenches and arms tense. A low grunt pops from my mouth at the unexpected sting.

Before I have a chance to prepare myself, Luna strikes me again, hard, even harder than the first swing.

Definitely an outlet.

“Fuck.” I groan through clenched teeth as she whips the crop against my right kidney in three sharp blows, one after the other. I don’t realize she’s directly aiming for it until she does the same with my left, a jabbing pain shooting from my kidney all the way through my skull.

She’s talented, I’ll give her that.

“All right, Luna. Ease up.”

The crop pauses long enough for her mocking laughter to cut through the air. “You were too weak to hit me, and now you’re too weak to be hit? Is that right?” She strikes me across the ass with such a practiced swing. I lurch forward an inch.

Something occurs to me: she is practiced.

The electric whips used on the Dregs were her design and unlikely to be the first. Whether I can picture it or not, Luna has been in those mines with a whip in her hand. Merciless and educated in the right flick of the wrist, grip of the handle, the perfect force to deliver maximum pain.

She hits me again. And again, seemingly as hard as she’s capable.

“You’re a coward, you know that?” She strikes me between the shoulder blades. “These are your tools. You brought them here so you could hurt me. But now that you know who I am, you’re too afraid to use them.”

“You think I’m afraid of you?”

She slaps my inner thigh in response. “I think you’re afraid of everything, slave. You told me so.” Leather strikes the back of my head, the bite causing my forehead to dig into the padding.

Too far.

Way too fucking far.

I turn halfway, the words calm down halfway out of my mouth when the crop bites my ear.

“Shit.” I cover my ear and grind my forehead against the pole.

“Do you think it’s your daddy trauma that makes you such a pussy? Or are you still trying to be Mommy’s good boy?”

Two harsh strikes, but these I hardly feel.

My eyes open wide, my chest expanding with an inhale that spreads fire through my ears.

I sense when Luna raises the crop once more, but before she can strike, I shove off the pole, angle my body to the side, and fling her forward. She catches herself on the padding, back bowing as I shove her between her shoulder blades.

I hold her firmly in place while putting my mouth to her ear. “What the fuck did you just say to me?”

“I said you’re a pussy.”

My hand glides up the base of her skull and curls a fist in her hair. I yank her head back, panting in her ear. “The other part.”

Her chest rises and falls in little jerky movements, and in the quiet, her breathing is as loud as a scream. I barely hear her whisper, “Punish me.”

My fist loosens at the plea dripping in her tone. Painful and desperate and…

Not about Angel.

In the two seconds it takes for me to understand the grief curled around Luna’s plea, she pushes her head against my hand to urge my fist back into compliance. I look down at my stomach, and though the wet warmth she left me with is gone and dried, I feel it hotter than before.

I close my eyes. Take a breath.

Then command lust to pump blood faster through my veins.