Kendra took a step to the side, and after the first fang came out, when Svetlana screamed and carried on with her high-pitched banshee wailing, Kendra looked to Zander and must’ve telepathed to ask him to do something about it, because the bitch’s screams went silent. She was still opening her mouth, still trying to scream, the tendons in herneck standing out with effort, but the sounds no longer came out.
The silence was somehow worse. More unsettling.
“God, your screams are fucking annoying,” Kendra told her, her tone conversational. “If Zander hadn’t done that, I’d have been tempted to remove your voice box to make it stop. Rumor has it you’re the true power between the two of you, but your husband has been a helluva lot more stoic. You make me embarrassed for women everywhere, with your carrying on.”
She punched that fang through Svetlana’s upper ear cartilage, then repeated it with the other ear. The movements were precise, almost surgical. No wasted motion.
Attendants worked the chains to turn both around, so their backs were to the audience, but different cameras engaged so the audience could still see their faces on the huge screen beside the stage. Emmy watched their expressions — Vladislav’s jaw clenched so tight she thought his teeth might crack, Svetlana’s face a rictus of silent agony.
Kendra was handed a six-foot braided whip, and the way she touched the barbs told Emmy they were stainless and not silver.
Felix squeezed her hand harder when the first lash hit, the braided leather snapping against flesh and echoing through the theater, leaving ripped skin and muscle in its wake. She looked to the side to see her friend’s eyes were still closed, his face turned slightly away. Maren was holdinghis other hand, but still focused on the stage, her face showing approval and entertainment.
Emmy gave Felix’s hand a comforting squeeze back and focused on Toby, who looked much the same as before — pale and sickened, but determined to watch the people who’d poisoned him get their due. His eyes were hard, unforgiving.
The audience she could see below them was still a mix of entertained and repulsed. The flock was directly in front of the dais, so she couldn’t see their faces, and she wondered how they were handling this.
Kendra’s whip flayed Svetlana’s back open, tearing skin into ribbons, blood spraying the stage along with pieces of torn flesh.
The screen showed the bitch was still trying to scream, mouth open in a silent O, but thankfully, no sound came out. Small mercies.
After twenty-four lashes, Kendra switched to Vladislav, his flesh tearing more than his wife’s, so muscles gleamed wetly beneath the stage lights. His raw, primal roars filled the room, but they must not have annoyed Kendra, and Emmy understood. His were genuine, hers had just been too fucking dramatic.
Kendra went back and forth, twenty-four each before she changed, and when she switched up and only gave twelve, Emmy knew this part was coming to an end.
And she was glad for it. Most of the skin was gone, and a whole lot of muscle. Emmy could see nearly all of theirshoulder blades, as well as parts of ribs and spine through the gore.
But for both, in a testament to Kendra’s control, the brands on their upper back and asses were whip-free and pristine while the flesh all around them was missing.
Kendra was an artist; she just used a leather whip instead of a fancy sable brush.
The supernatural world is big on one hundred forty-four lashes, a dozen squared, and Kendra would give all but the final twelve, which would be given by Zander.
When Kendra finished, she turned to the audience, and a gasp went through the room.
Her lavender outfit was now red in the front, drenched and darkened with blood, chunks of flesh sticking to both her skin and the fabric. Her face was also splattered crimson, and Emmy’s breath caught, but from respect, not horror.
She appreciated the fact Kendra hadn’t worn black to hide the mess. She was glorying in it, showing it off, rather than trying to obscure it.This is what I do to those who harm us. This is who and what I am.
“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” Zander asked, walking back onto the stage with a different whip in his hand. “A master at her work. Let’s get a round of applause for Kendra before I finish this portion of our criminals’ punishment.”
Emmy let go of Felix’s hand to clap as hard and fast as she’d ever clapped for a performance, her palms stinging with the force of it. She noted some other of the flock did soas well, but many gave a half-hearted round of applause. The vampires and others in the audience were just as mixed.
“It’s perfectly normal to rename slaves, and I find I want to do so with our Slavic slaves. Ironic, isn’t it? Those of us who’ve lived long enough know the word slave comes from the fact the Slavs were the ones being enslaved, millennia ago. And so, I will rename them…”
He paused and walked so he could see their faces, standing between them. The silence stretched, anticipation building.
“Svetlana is now Serva — fit for nothing but service. Vladislav is now Vassal — also completely fitting to his new station.”
The crowd murmured, the names a fresh lash, their Slavic heritage twisted into chains. Emmy felt the weight of it and approved: the erasure of identity, the reduction to function.Serva.Vassal.Not people anymore. Just slaves. Things.
Zander walked back around, still facing the crowd. “Apologies, but I want to hear Serva’s screams while I finish shredding her back. I won’t turn them back on until I’m ready to get started, though.”
Emmy’s pulse quickened in anticipation. She hadn’t been able to fully enjoy Alistair’s whipping because she hadn’t thought the punishment fit the crime, but this? She’d nursed her friends back to health twice, and then she, personally, could have fucking died. She’d been so sick, she’d thought death would be a releasefrom the pain. Soyes, the motherfuckers deserved everything Zander and Kendra were doing, and more.
Zander had been holding the whip rolled up, and he grasped the handle and let it unfurl, drawing another gasp from the crowd when its full length settled around him — eight feet long with multiple silver barbs braided into the thick weight of it. It looked deadly, vicious, a sinuous length of intent snaking across the stage like a living being, as though it’d been given purpose rather than shape, brought to life specifically to dole out punishment and pain.
And these were obviously pure silver, based on the way they caught the light, gleaming like stars against the dark leather. Emmy was surprised Zander had held the coiled whip in his hands the way he had.
