“Loïc, please go get ready for bed.”
“But Papa—”
“It’s time. You have school tomorrow. Go get cleaned up.”
Once their son had reluctantly departed, Brandt stalked toward her. “You’re destroying yourself trying to do everything.”
“I’m fine!” She sucked in a deep breath, forcing her eyelids to stay open a normal amount.
“You’re not. You’re stretching yourself too thin. Doting on Loïc every second he’s awake and most of the time he’s asleep.Working yourself unconscious at the shop. Anticipating my needs before I know them myself. Staying up late to spend time with us, getting up early to get everything else done.” His tail switched behind him like an angry cat’s. “When did you last eat?”
She couldn’t remember.Breakfast? Maybe?
“This stops now.” His voice carried command. “You’re going to eat properly. You’re going to sleep a full night. And you’re going to do both before you do anything else.”
“What if Loïc wakes up?” His gargoyle nature meant he was often restless at night.
“Then I’ll comfort him. That’s what fathers do.” He cupped her face, thumb tracing the dark circle under her eye she knew had to be there. “Your whole life can’t be penance, Idabel.”
While she ate a meal that he prepared, he put Loïc to bed, firmly but gently explaining that big gargoyles slept in their own nests. She heard him telling stories through the wall, his deep voice rumbling through tales of brave warriors and their dragon friends until Loïc’s chirps faded to the slow sighs of sleep.
When Brandt returned and saw she’d cleaned all the dishes, his expression was dark, but the bond told her he wasn’t angry. He was feeling something else, something that made her pulse quicken and her knees press together in anticipation.
“You’ve been very disobedient,” he said in that dangerous, soft purr of his. “I told you to sleep.”
Sheepishly, she dried her hands on her apron. “I was just trying to help. Someone has to wash them.”
“It doesn’t always have to be you. You starve yourself while you feed others. You drive your body to exhaustion to heal others. You give up all the comforts of life except when I force them on you. And for what?” His voice grated the harsh question like she on trial for a crime. “To prove your shame? To punish yourself before I can?”
Her stomach cramped. She wanted to argue, but the truth twisted painfully in her belly. “I don’t like to take too much,” she whispered. “After what I did. I’ve taken enough.”
A growl cut her off. “Enough. You don’t decide what you deserve. I do. And what you deserve right now is care, Idabel. Since you will not give it willingly to yourself, I must correct you.” He led her into the nesting chamber, where he sat on the edge of their nest, patting his lap. “Lie down here.”
Heat flooded her face at the implication. He wasn’t really going to spank her like a naughty child, was he? “I’ll do better,” she swore. “I’ll ask before I wash the dishes next time.”
“Now, Idabel.”
Her pulse leapt and heat surged through her. The command in his tone was as intoxicating as mead. Her thighs clenched as she tried to summon defiance, but she wanted desperately to please him, even if it involved her own humiliation.
He reached and pulled her onto his lap so she lay across his muscled thighs on her belly. One large hand pressed between her shoulders, pinning her easily.
“You have neglected my mate,” he growled, caressing her backside through her clothes, kneading the flesh beneath. “You’ve allowed yourself to grow weary and thin. That is not acceptable.”
“I’m sorry,” she whimpered, part of her still hoping he’d relent. She felt his cock thicken beneath her at the apology.
“That’s right, you are a sorry thing. So perhaps now you will listen to me.” He dragged her skirt and petticoats up over her hips with the other hand, baring her. “You will learn. And you will not forget again.”
The first strike of his broad palm landed with a dull crack. Fire blossomed across her flesh. She gasped, every nerve ending alive. The swift shock of the second stole her breath. A third followed and then a fourth, each one a stinging rebuke thatoverlapped and built upon the last. She clenched her jaw, determined to take this punishment in silence to show her remorse.
But Brandt didn’t want her silence. He paused, rubbing over the spot he’d punished. The sensitive skin there made her squirm away from his hand. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Forgive me,” she panted. His cock leapt again, pressing into her soft stomach. So it wasn’t a coincidence. He wanted her apologies. She shifted so her breasts brushed over his swelling shaft. “Please, Brandt, I’m so sorry.”
A throaty growl slipped out of him, and he gripped the back of her neck, stilling her. “I know what you’re doing, Idabel, and I won’t be distracted. I thought you were a rabbit, but you’re a little vixen, aren’t you?”
“I’m sorry?”
That made him laugh and harden even more, but he grew serious too quickly, delivering another half-dozen slaps to her increasingly heated bottom before pausing again to torment her with gentle, feathering fingers that skimmed over her dampening folds.
