Page 38 of Savage Union

“Just answer the question,” I said, frowning at him. “Did you tell Jerx and the rest of the crew that Cass was a Catamite?”

“He did! Jerx said. “He said it and the whole crew heard it!”

“I never did!” Gurflug exclaimed, clearly deciding that denial was his safest route. “Though Ididhear Jerx call the pup a Catamite several times,” he added.

“Fucking liar!” Jerx snarled, rounding on him. “You saidyouwere the only navigator and that the Captain hired that fucking little brat as a Catamite!”

It sounded plausible enough. I turned to Cass and raised my eyebrows.

“Cass? Is this true?”

The boy nibbled his lower lip, his eyes going even wider.

“Don’t worry,” I told him. “Just tell me the truth.”

At last he spoke up.

“It’s true,” he said in a low voice. “Jerx started calling me ‘Catamite’ right away but then in the mess hall, Gurflug said thathewas the only navigator and I was hired for…to serve the crew. Sexually.” He swallowed hard and I could hear the click in his throat.

I could see what it cost him to say those words—the pain and humiliation. Not to mention the personal danger Gurflug’s lie had put him in.

I turned to the big Galafruxian.

“So you told the whole crew that your fellow navigator was here tofuckthem.”

“I never…” Gurflug began to protest.

I turned to Jerx.

“And thenyoudecided to rape Cass, based on Gurflug’s words.”

“Yeah, but Captain, look at it this way—I was doin’ the boy a favor!” Jerx protested.

I felt my eyebrows lifting almost to my hairline.

“Whatdid you say?” I demanded. “Since when is raping someone doing them a fuckingfavor?”

“You know Catamites!” Jerx protested. “They got certainneeds.Like theyneedto suck cock—theyneedto get fucked. It’s part of their DNA. I was just helping him out, that’s all.”

I glared at him.

“Crewman, that is the lamest excuse for rape I’ve ever heard in my life. Remove your shirt and step up to the whipping cross.”

Jerx shot me a hate-filled glance and I thought at first he might challenge my authority. I bared my fangs at him, letting them grow long and sharp. Only the high-born Brutes of ClanSavage have fangs and I was certain Jerx knew how deadly they could be. I can either kill or heal with a bite and I certainly wasn’t planning on fucking healing him.

With a final snarl, Jerx yanked off his shirt and went to the X-shaped whipping cross. Reaching up, he grabbed the two long grips protruding from the top ends of the X. He gripped one in each hand, which stretched his bare back out like a canvas for the whip, and braced himself.

“Twenty lashes,” I told him. “And that’s a light sentence. I’ll give you a hundred more if I ever catch you trying anything like what I saw tonight again aboard my ship!”

I uncoiled the whip and shook it out, listening to the faint sizzling, crackling sound it made as it came to life. Most of the pain from this whip was caused by nerve conduction—every blow was magnified times ten. So while it didn’t usually leave marks, getting whipped by it was absolute agony.

I’ve said before that I take no pleasure in whipping any of the men under me—but Ididtake pleasure in this whipping. Every time I drew back my arm and let the sizzling lash fly, I remembered the sight of Jerx trying to hurt the boy—I saw that slight, delicate frame trembling under his hairy bulk—and I fuckingreveledin punishing him for it.

I gave him twenty lashes—no more and no less—and Jerx grunted and groaned with every one. When I was finished the hairy pelt that covered his back was nearly bald—the whip having burned the hair away as it stung him.

“That’s twenty,” I said, coiling the whip again. Touching it didn’t hurt me because it was keyed to my DNA.

Jerx groaned as he let go of the grips but he didn’t dare to give me a look. He did, however, shoot an angry glance at Cass, who was still sitting silently in my desk chair.

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