Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 64359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
The cane whips through the air. I hear a swish, and then a CRACK.
For a brief moment, I feel nothing. Maybe he didn’t hit me. Maybe… oh no. An icy-hot flash bursts through my body, making me suddenly aware of every inch of my being. The stripe where the cane landed is especially painful. It feels as though there is some ongoing damage occurring in its wake.
I scream in outrage and fly back up off the couch. His hand is there, pushing me back into position, but I have no interest in submitting to a beating from a judgmental alien. I don’t like pain, and I don’t tolerate it. But he is powerful and much, much stronger than I am, so what choice do I have? A second and third stroke land, each of them met with a screech and wail on my part.
“Let me go, monster! Let me fucking go!”
“Quiet,” he says, looming over me in this mid-century mad interior. “You will learn to be disciplined with some kind of decorum. I will not have a human mate who thinks yelling is appropriate.”
“You’re hitting me, you oversized fucking roach!”
“Now that is just disrespectful,” he says, his tone mild, but his disappointment clear. “None of us is able to choose the form in which we are incarnated. Calling me a roach because I am bothering to do what should have been done to you long ago is very rude.”
I almost feel guilty on the receiving end of that lecture. He’s right, I am rude. But that is the least of my sins, really.
“It hurts!” I exclaim. He is still keeping me pinned to the couch, but he has not used the cane again. It feels incredibly vulnerable to be naked and beaten, especially in what looks like some old fashioned living room. The scene is domestic, and almost human. It calls to some part of me, an ancestral memory of living this way.
“It is supposed to hurt. I see you have been mated, too. You have been used by another because of the position you put yourself in. Do you realize how furious it makes me to know that this perfect body has been defiled by another male? Do you know how completely you belong to me?”
I squirm against the somewhat rough material of the couch, feeling it brush against my nipples and belly as I try to arch my ass away from the cane. That does nothing to stop it from landing for a fourth time with a flick of his wrist that ignites fresh sting.
“I will take your silence as an indication that you do not yet understand how important you are.”
“Why?” The question comes in an anguished wail as a fifth stroke lands.
“You are human. You are a little oasis of potential, rare genetic material. You are a unique creature among unique creatures, and you are acting in a way that will get you killed. There is numahn Sheriff who wishes to execute you. That is unacceptable.”
“You won’t let him, will you?”
SMACK! The sixth stroke lands, making me writhe and cry and all the usual reactions to being punished. I cannot help myself. Any remnants of dignity are gone, shredded in the wake of his damn cane.
“This is a traditional method for punishing wayward humans,” he says, standing back to let me squirm and try to process the pain. “I think it is very effective. You seem to be listening in a way you were not listening before. I hope that this has been a lesson to you.”
“Is that it? Are we done?”
“For now,” he says, his tone softening slightly.
I am on my knees on the couch. He remains towering over me, his human suited form looking very imposing. There’s still that one scythkin claw showing, that reminder of what he is really. My mind is swiftly alternating between feeling terribly brutalized and incredibly protected. Sheriff’s not coming through this guy. Nobody is. The others are absolutely out of luck if they think they’re going to claim me now.
“I’m sorry,” I say softly. I know it’s what he wants to hear, though I’m not really sorry.
“I hope you are. Now. Come. You need to be bathed, dressed, and fed.”
I like the sound of that. I don’t like the feeling of walking with my ass covered in tight, hot lines from the cane, but I do like the way my bare feet curl into the long pile of the carpet as I follow the scythkin’s tall, suited form through the interior of his ship that feels like a human home.
I don’t know his name. I’m curious, and I almost want to ask, but I also don’t really want to be on the receiving end of the question. I have no intention of telling him my name. My name is the last thing I have that is actually mine. It’s the one thing I have no intention of turning over to anybody ever again.