Page 17 of His Bride

“Think before you speak, Mila,” he growls. “Remember that your words have power, and much damage can come from simply saying whatever comes to mind. There are times I will want to know what you think, but I expect you to express yourself respectfully and mindfully.”

His big palm makes solid, stinging contact with my ass over and over, making it throb and ache. This is a humiliating punishment that serves to somehow make me feel smaller than I did before. I don’t like it. I don’t like it and I am not going to give into it.

He pauses for a moment, holding me in place, and speaking to me as if I am his to chastise.

“I hope you have learned your lesson.”

“I can assure you I have not. I have no idea what it is, besides the fact that you are willing to be an absolute brute for no particular reason.”

“The lesson was in minding your tongue.”

He doesn’t want me to talk? Very well. I shall say nothing. I feel as though I should cry, but I absolutely refuse to. He has spanked me in such a manner that cannot possibly befit his wife.I have never even seen a servant subjected to such humiliating discipline.

“Do you understand, Mila?”

I don’t answer him. I lie over his lap and I continue the stony silence. How dare he. How very fucking dare he.

“I see, and now you petulantly refuse to speak at all. I think you need some time to think about how you are going to behave,” he says, setting me on my feet and steering me toward a corner of the room. Yet again, I have absolutely no idea what he intends to do with me. I find myself in the corner, standing in the place two walls meet for some entirely inexplicable reasons.

“What is this?”

He sighs. “You are so ill-disciplined that you do not understand when you are being punished. Face the corner. Do not move until I tell you.”

My rear tingles as I respond, knowing I am saying the wrong thing, but also feeling very much as though the wrong thing needs to be said. “Oh, I see, more humiliation. How original.”

I hear him guffaw, a sound that indicates he is somewhat shocked. “And here I was, thinking you were too innocent and timid. You are a sassy little wench.”

Is there some affection in that last declaration? He does not sound as angry anymore. If anything, he sounds relieved. That confuses me enough to do as I have been told. I stand and I stare at the wall and I think about how strange this day has been, how it began with me thinking I was going to have the house to myself without Maraline, and how it has ended, with meas a married woman in trouble for displeasing her much older husband.

It doesn’t feel fair, but I have been reliably informed that fairness is something one is asked to be, rather than expected to receive.

“Stay there,” he says. “And hold your skirt up. I intend to observe your punished cheeks from a more comfortable location.”

“Another country would suit me,” I mutter under my breath.

He sighs, sounding almost sorrowful. “I wanted to end things here,” he says. “I really did. But you are pushing me at every turn.”

He leaves the room. I stay where I am, waiting for whatever terrible thing is about to happen. I can feel that I am in trouble. It is a strange feeling, and I am not used to it. I never really got into trouble at home. They never really cared what I said there, they mostly ignored me. This man, on the other hand, finds my every word extremely significant.

He returns swiftly, having presumably gotten something from elsewhere in this absolutely leviathan house. I feel his large hand scruff my dress at the nape of my neck and haul me over to the bed. He bends me over the edge of it, sweeping my undergarments down my legs and away, leaving me bare and vulnerable to his stare—but it’s not what he can see that should worry me. It’s what he’s going to do to me.

A loudcracknot far from my head makes me flinch in place. He has slapped a narrow whip-like lash against the bed next to me. The sound of it is remarkably loud, like a gunshot.

“This is a cane,” he says. “It is usually reserved for punishing errant soldiers, but it will do an equally good job on a young lady who does not respond to gentler discipline.”

I look at the thin line of wood-like material pressed into the black silk coverlet next to me. It does not look that intimidating, though I am supposed to be afraid of it. He wants me to be afraid of him. He wants me to watch my every word and be careful when I am around him. I imagine this is how it is for the Archon-General. He is accustomed to ruling people with an iron fist—or a thin wood stick.

“You’re going to behave respectfully,” he says, his voice stern and calm in contrast to the brutality of his action. “And you’re going to learn that there’s no limit to what I will do in order to get you in line. You are my wife, and you will be a credit to me.”

With that he stands back, taps the tip of the implement against my cheeks, then pulls it back and brings it down hard and fast.

I scream as the horrible lash lands across my ass, the sudden flare of pain a thin line that is so intense I feel tears leaping to my eyes. I understand now why I was supposed to react to seeing the thing. It is a horrible tool, and it causes more pain in one stroke than all the spanking did before.

“You’re killing me!”

“I am not,” he says. “Killing you would be much more merciful than what I intend to do to you after all this disrespect.”

The lash lands again.

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