Omra gaped at the empty space where Dak had stood moments before. What had she done? How had she upset him? They’d been caught coupling, but public displays weren’t unusual. They’d passed several booths where betas and even a few alphas had a female on all fours. In one not so remote corner of the Market, a vendor had collected coin from men who lined up to use his female, her pain-filled cries mingling with ribald cheers.
The only difference was that she enjoyed being taken by Dak. Was that the problem? Was it that she found pleasure in the act? Was that why he’d ordered her silence, had placed his hand over her mouth? And why would the pleasure they’d shared cause him to look so lost? He’d exhibited the same expression her mother had the day her sire had delivered Omra to the containment facility.
After the way Dak had warned her, he would not abandon her in the Market—but there was no telling how far his long-legged stride would take him. The twists and turns of the Market had befuddled her, and in truth, she had paid more attention to Dak than to where they’d been heading. So many people bustled through the Market. What if she couldn’t find him?
She ran from the tent. “Dak! Dak!” she called out, halting when she spotted him a short distance away. He spun around, his features darkened with such fury she flinched. He swept the aisle with his gaze like a storm tearing across the land; then he closed the distance between them and grabbed her shoulders. “Do not ever address me by my given name in a public place. Have you no sense?” he hissed.
He clamped onto her arm and hauled her back into the stall. He ripped the sudon from his belt and shoved her over the table again. Her stomach contracted, this time in dread, not excitement.
Fire streaked across her buttocks. Seconds later the afterburn ignited as the venom from the quills spread through her system. A harder strike topped it. So intense was the pain, her breath caught in her lungs.
He landed another blow.
And another.
The air left her in a scream.
Dak didn’t miss a stroke as he chastised her verbally and physically. “You will refrain from using my name in public.” Whoosh.
“You will maintain distance and decorum.” Whoosh.
Omra clawed at the wooden table. Her pleas and apologies did nothing to deter him, even seemed to spur him to greater fervor as he worked the sudon over her buttocks and down the backs of her thighs.
Omra shrieked when a streak lanced her skin, as if he’d laid her flesh open. Twenty lashes? Twenty-five? It could have been a hundred, the pain was so searing by the time he yanked her upright to face him. His hands bruised her arms as he shook her until her head wobbled on her neck. “You will follow Protocol. Do you understand?”
Shivers racked her body. “Y-yes.” Omra sobbed in agony and shame. She had become so comfortable in private, she had slipped. No matter what occurred in their domicile, in their sleeping chamber, she was a mere breeder and he was Alpha.
He shook her hard. Glowered. “What?”
“Y-yes, Alpha.”
“Yes, Alpha. That is correct.” Still retaining a hold on one arm, he swung the sudon against her ass. She cried out and rose up on tiptoes. He laid several more blistering blows to her backside and thighs before he reattached the implement to his belt.
She did not recognize this frightening, angry man whose physical stature expanded with his rage. He’d grown taller, broader, his musculature bulging and coiling, presenting her with a blood-chilling glimpse of what his opponents faced in battle—the most awesome warrior of their society. Peerless, except for the four other Commanders.
But something else had slipped through his fierce facade, something none of his foes would ever see. Fear. Pain. He hid it well, so it was only a glimmer, a speck beneath the outrage, but she recognized it. Somehow, without intending to, her actions had hurt him. Her eyes filled with a fresh spate of tears, and he released her so abruptly, she almost fell. His face transformed into a stony wall.
“Let us finish our business here,” he said. “Y-yes, Alph-pha.” Tears poured down her cheeks, and she hung her head.
Just Right!
