“What do you have to say for yourself?” he asked again, delivering another blow as punctuation. “Can you feel my frustration with you? My fear that you will not let me help you when you need aid?”
“Yes,” she whimpered, squirming. The next slap landed square between her legs with a wet sound, and her whole core clenched.
Brandt groaned. “Fallen gods, you like it. I’m not sure you’re learning what I want you to learn tonight.”
“No, I am!” she rushed to say. “I’m learning a lot. Don’t stop.”
With a dark, resigned chuckle, he resumed the spanking, mounting a rhythmic assault that turned her skin into a tender map of his disapproval. With each strike, something within herbegan to unravel. As she put herself into his hands, her guilt and shame, so crystallized during the years without him, began to fracture and fall away.
A low moan escaped her, not just from the pain, but from the rightness of it. This was her atonement, physical and undeniable. It was so much deeper and more satisfying than all the small ways she punished herself.
“What have you learned so far, little rabbit?” he murmured in her ear. Her whole body was throbbing so much that she hadn’t noticed when he’d paused again.
She could hardly think, but she owed him an honest answer. “That I should trust you to care for me. That I should ask for what I need, and you will give it to me.”
“Very good.” His fingers teased between her legs, stroking and pinching her slippery folds. “And what do you need right now?”
“This,” she breathed, pushing her hips back against his hand. “More.”
“I think you’ve had enough punishment for one night, my pretty, pink mate.” Two blunt fingers traced along her wet heat and then pushed inside her, soothing the hollow ache that had built between her thighs. “I think you need pleasure more. Perhaps that will help the lesson stick.”
Her body jolted as he thrust his fingers into her, eased by her arousal. He shuttled them in and out, curving to touch a place that sent sparks through her, like she was flint and he was steel.
The feelings built so quickly. She whined and writhed against them, resisting the sensations. Shouldn’t he be taking his pleasure, too? From the feel of him, he wanted it as much as she did. She couldn’t bear to think that he might deny himself while she indulged.
“Brandt, please!” she begged. “Won’t you let me touch you? I can’t stand being the only one who feels this good.”
“This is part of the lesson,” he said, his voice softening though his hand still pressed heavy on her back. “You must learn how to take what I give you without trying to balance the scale. I am your justice, remember?”
He pumped his fingers deep, his thumb teasing her swollen clit. The sting of the spanking only heightened the sensations, every thrust nudging her closer to her release until she felt balanced on a precipice. She moaned, rocking back against his hand.
“That’s it, come for me.”
“No,” she gasped, the word torn from her. “Don’t let me…it’s too good.”
His hand left her back to fist in her braid, pulling her head back sharply. “You deserve what I say you deserve,” he growls. “And I say you deserve to come all over my hand. I want to feel you milk my fingers.Now,Idabel.”
He buried his fingers in her, hitting a place that unspooled her completely. The orgasm ripped through her violently. Her body seized around him, a series of frantic, clutching spasms that tore a broken sob from her lips. Her vision whited out at the edges as she surrendered to it completely.
He held her, working her gently until the spasms eased, then withdrew to stroke her hip, grounding her until she caught her breath. He eased her off his lap into the nest, covering her and tucking the furs around her.
“Sleep now,” he murmured, kissing down her face from her hairline to her lips. “If you wake, I’ll be here. With more punishment or pleasure, depending on what you need.”
Idabel sagged back into the furs, her skin throbbing, her head and heart strangely light. The guilt she always carried hadn’t vanished, but it didn’t weigh heavy over everything. Brandt’s lesson had lifted some of it, leaving her free to sleep and dream.
Chapter 33
Brandt
Ghantal produced results even more quickly that he’d anticipated. Only a handful of nights after he charged her with discovering who was responsible for the head healers’ sabotage, she brought him information when she returned with Loïc from his flying lessons.
She waited to deliver her news until after he ran to show Idabel what he’d learned at school. “Tomin and Kerec live.”
A shock ran through him. He had mourned them. Wore scars for them. His heart buoyed to think that they had survivedwhen so many others did not. But he could tell from Ghantal’s expression she did not think the news was good.
He opened the door wider. “Come in.”
She touched the back of her hand to her horns in gratitude and stepped inside, waiting until the latch clicked shut before adding, “The moths tell me that Tomin is a ninth-tier commander.”
