Still cursing himself for his weakness, Franklin clenched his hands into tight fists above his head and frantically tried to keep it together, to stay strong and take his punishment.
His pain was nothing compared to Cameron’s.Franklin knew that.As the lash fell against his back for the third time, the knowledge wasn’t enough to give him the strength to remain silent.
*
Cameron flinched as the whip fell against Franklin’s back for what already felt like the hundredth time.
Franklin screamed out, a sound so raw, so agonised Cameron could barely stand to hear it.
He folded his arms across his chest in an effort to prevent himself reaching out to stop Ellery from delivering another blow, and to stop himself clamping his hands over his ears, too.He claws sliced through his shirt dug into his biceps as his control almost failed him.
His heart raced faster and faster as he watched another vivid red line bloom across Franklin’s shoulders.
No!
The word roared through his mind, drowning out almost everything else.The only words that survived the onslaught of the sound were the ones he’d been repeating to himself ever since he agreed to the punishment.
A good master makes sure his pet has whatever he needs.If this was what Franklin needed, Cameron had to make sure it was what he received.He had to.
Blood dripped from Cameron’s arm as his claws cut deeper into the muscle, but Cameron barely felt it.All he could think about was Franklin’s pain.Humans were more fragile than lions.The fact it was a human whipping Franklin ceased to make Cameron believe that would keep his pet any safer.
Cameron swallowed rapidly.He should have loved seeing one of the rich men from the clubs tied up and whipped.He’d imagined it so many times, when he’d had no choice but to take what they’d dished out to him.
Revenge should have been sweet.It shouldn’t have turned his stomach.
To have one of those men—
Cameron’s thoughts faltered.One of those men…
None of the men who’d offered him money in those clubs had felt the least bit guilty for anything they’d done to him.None of them would have seen any need for them to be punished for taking whatever the hell they wanted from him.None ofthemwere the man under the lash.
Franklin would have offered him money—Cameron had no doubt about that.But, as he looked across the room at Franklin, it suddenly occurred to him that that alone didn’t mean that Franklin would have treated him the same way the punters had if he’d taken that money.
Would Franklin really have enjoyed knowing that he was forcing Cameron to do something that Cameron hated just because he could?Or would it have been more like when the sacrifices were thrown to the lions, where one hint of fear or reluctance would have seen the whole thing brought to a halt?
With his mind racing faster than Cameron had ever known, he tried to picture Franklin acting the way other humans had treated him, tried to imagine him in the place of those other men.It…
It wasn’t possible…
The whip fell again, pulling another harsh, pain-filled sound from Franklin’s throat.
Cameron blinked at the scene before him as he was roughly shoved back into the here and now.He dragged his claws out of the ripped flesh on his arm, carelessly tearing his skin further as he rushed forward.
Somewhere unimportant, somewhere outside the bubble that seemed to exist around him and Franklin in that moment, someone spoke.Cameron didn’t have any attention to spare for that person as he took several more paces forward, until he stood directly behind Franklin.
Franklin’s shoulders shook as he fought to draw a breath into his body.The dark red lines of pain the whip had painted across his back stood out in stark contrast to his tanned skin.With just a few inches between them, Cameron stalled.He reached out, but he had no idea how to touch Franklin, how to soothe him without making his pain worse.
“Don’t stop…” Franklin’s words were barely more than a broken whisper.A lion’s hearing still made easy work of them.
Don’t stop, Cameron repeated to himself, because the punishment was what Franklin needed.Any reply that he might have wanted to make caught in his throat.
The man he loved needed him to ensure that the punishment was finished.He needed the whip to fall the full twenty times.The man he loved…
Cameron closed his eyes.
The humans in those clubs hadn’t quite killed off that ability in him then.Cameron supposed he should be grateful for that, but it was hard to think that anything in the world could ever be right when the man he loved was in so much pain.
“Finish the punishment.”The words were so calm, so confident, even Cameron himself found it hard to believe they came from his own lips.
