And with that, the time for talking was over, and he dealt the first of the twelve-squared lashes he’d decreed.
The first lash landed with a crack. Alistair grunted but didn’t cry out.
By the tenth, blood streaked the vile fucker’s back in dark rivulets.
By the thirtieth, skin hung in strips.
And still, rage burned in Zander’s chest like liquid nitrogen under pressure.
The garden was completely silent around them. No one spoke. No one moved around. No shuffling feet. No rustle of fabric.
He went into a flock member’s head who was looking at Emerald, sitting on the throne-like stone chair. She sat upright, chin high, her expression carved in ice.
She’d looked at him earlier like she wanted to be beneath him, and he’d had to consciously rein in his response. Her scent had sharpened, sweetened, told him all he needed to know. She hadn’t wanted to be aroused, but her body hadn’t given her a choice. Neither had his.
He clenched his jaw and forced it down. Forced all of it down.
He lifted his arm and continued.
Zander delivered each cruel lash methodically, with full strength and perfect aim. He’d done this often enough to know how to prolong the pain without allowing unconsciousness. How to make every lash a lesson carved into flesh.
By the end of the fourth dozen, Alistair’s back was a ruined landscape, raw muscle exposed, bone peeking through in places. Zander paused, not from fatigue, but toexert control. The beast in him wanted to keep going until there was nothing left, but the Master Vampire kept the rhythm.
He counted silently. Kept the whip moving. He knew Kendra was keeping track as well, and she’d count down the final dozen.
At one hundred thirty-two, Alistair sagged, blood pouring freely. He was still conscious, though.
“The final twelve,” Kendra announced. “I will count them aloud.”
The first eleven dozen had been given as the final dozen usually are, and for the last set, Zander putmorestrength into every lash. Chunks of flesh flew away. Blood spattered. Zander stood just under five feet away and stepped forward during the strikes.
He was covered head to toe in splatter — and worse.
When Kendra counted the twelfth of the final set, he turned and met Emerald’s icy stare. She didn’t flinch when their gazes met and the moment stretched between them, and that made him have to control his own reaction.
He arrowed the extra blood flow away from his cock, and catalogued her posture. Straight, unmoving, her hands folded tightly in her lap. Every time he’d gone into someone’s head to watch her, she’d stared at what was being done. She never looked away.
She was flock, and that made her his, but she was also the daughter of his best friend, andthatmade her off limits to him.
He turned back to Alistair, held upright only by the chains. His breath came in ragged sobs, and blood soaked the stones beneath him.
Zander stepped in front of him, grabbed his chin, and pushed enough power into him to force the worthless cunt to full consciousness. The little shit was going to feel every motherfucking ounce of pain.
Alistair’s eyes flew wide open and he gasped with the sudden influx of fresh pain and agony, forced wide awake after managing near unconsciousness.
Zander stepped back and motioned to his dungeon master, who stepped forward along with Kendra, and the two unlocked the chains holding his wrists overhead, and then secured him into the pillory ten feet in front of where he’d been whipped. Permanent stone on the bottom, a wooden piece on top, and a chain locked around the two at both ends.
When he was properly bent over, Zander opened the front of the trousers and thrust into the wretched bastard’s asshole and fucked him hard and fast ten minutes before pulling out, walking in front of him, and ejaculating on the man’s tearstained face.
“You will be released long enough to crawl to the one you disrespected. You will kneel before her as the weak fuckingcreatureyou are, and you will offer a proper apology as befits one of her noteworthy bloodlines. Should I not approve of your apology, you will feel the short, barbed whip on your dick and balls.”
He looked up to the crowd. “The malefactor will be returned to the pillory after he gives a suitable apology, where anyone in the top third of the hierarchy is welcome to fuck whatever hole they wish for the first two hours, and then anyone may fuck him during the remainder of the night. He’ll be available until an hour before sunrise, when he’ll go into the dungeon for his repose. He’ll remain there three nights without sustenance, and will be fed bagged blood when he rises on the fourth night.”
He let that sink in before announcing the rest. “Alistair will be housed in a light-proof room attached to the stables until he can show a reliable ability to make honorable, ethical decisions. Until I deem him worthy of being trusted with the security level to enter our home.”
Kendra released him, and Alistair did his best to crawl across the large circle to Emerald.
It took a long time.
