Page 46 of The Alien's Cruel Starfrost Domain

Khrint stepped toward me again.

I held out my hand, and Khrint dropped my riding crop into it. “Twenty lashes with a crop.”

Lara gasped, her hands flying up to her mouth. “No,” she said, glancing around as if expecting help from her fellow servants. “You can’t be serious. You kidnapped me and then you don’t expect me to try to get away? Fuck that.”

I ignored her words, turning toward the two footmen Khrint had tapped to aid in the punishment. “Please restrain her.”

They stepped up and each took one of Lara’s arms. She began thrashing, but Khrint wrapped a rope around her ankles.

“Bare or clothed?” Khrint asked.

I clenched my teeth against the surge of heat that flashed through me at the thought. “Clothed,” I gritted out.

But as she stared at me in outrage, I directed my next words to her. “But know that if you insist on continued disobedience, the punishments will only increase from here.”

She closed her mouth tightly, clamping her lips down on whatever she had been about to say.

I nodded at the footmen, and Khrint pushed her to her knees.

Her golden-red hair fell forward, partially obscuring her face. Without thinking, I reached down to sweep it back, my fingers brushing her neck. She shivered, though whether from fear or something else, I couldn’t say.

The footmen bent her over the bench seat. Stretching her arms out in front of her, they ran a second length of rope between the one binding her wrists and then secured her hands to the legs of the bench. She struggled against them the whole time—I expected nothing less—and the bench scraped across the room’s dark wood floor, sending up a screeching echo.

I watched her strain against the bonds, her clothing pulling taut across her back, and my mouth went dry at the sight. Every curve of her body was highlighted by the position, making it impossible to ignore how perfectly she would fit against me. Those curves begged for my touch as I circled her like a predator stalking prey. When I placed my hand between her shoulder blades, I could feel her heart racing beneath my palm, her rapid breathing matching my thundering pulse. Her warmth burned through the fabric, branding my skin.

“Count,” I commanded, my voice emerging as a guttural rasp that betrayed far too much of my need.

I brought the crop down in a precise arc, savoring the sharp crack as leather met flesh and the impact shuddered up my arm, echoing through my entire body. Her flesh yielded beneath the strike, and she jerked against my restraining hand. The small sound that escaped her sent heat pooling low in my gut. When she remained silent, my cock hardened painfullyagainst my breeches.

I slashed the crop down again, harder this time, struggling to keep my hand steady. “One.”

Still nothing. I snapped the leather against the curve of her ass, watching the fabric indent with the strike, and I had to bite back a groan at how she arched into it. “One.”

“That was three,” she spat, her voice deliciously hoarse with anger and something darker.

I tightened my grip on the crop. I could barely force the words past my tight throat. “Not until you begin counting.”

“One,” she ground out, and I had to fight the urge to drop the crop and claim her right there.

I methodically delivered each strike, watching sweat bead along her hairline by the fifth blow. By the tenth, I felt her trembling beneath my palm, her skin burning against mine. I pressed my hand more firmly against her back, telling myself I needed to hold her still, but craving every point of contact between us.

I wanted her with an intensity that terrified me. Each time I brought down the crop, I came closer to losing control, to abandoning all my careful plans and taking what my body screamed was mine. The need to possess her warred with my determination to keep her unmarked—at least until the moment I would have to end her life.

When she finally gasped out the last number, I struggled to control my ragged breathing. I forced myself to step back, gripping the crop until my knuckles whitened, using the pain to ground myself. To remember why I couldn’t give in to the hunger consuming me from the inside out.

“Remember,” I addressed the assembled servants, hoping none could hear the strain in my voice, “Starfrost expects loyalty and obedience at all times.”

Only after they had filed out did I gesture for the footmen to untie Lara. As they helped her to her feet, her eyes met mine. The defiance there was unchanged, but now it was mixed with something else—something that made my blood run hot despite the ice in my veins.

“You son of a bitch,” she gritted out between clenched teeth. “You enjoyed that.”

I couldn’t deny it, so I didn’t even try. “And under other circumstances, you would’ve enjoyed it, as well,” I promised, my voice low.

“I won’t forget this.”

I nodded. “See that you don’t.”

With a final glare, she limped away, leaving me alone with the echoes of leather on flesh and three painfully stark truths:

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