Eagerness lightened his step as Marlix hurried home to Tara. When he’d first released her, it had been with trepidation that he’d returned each day, unsure if she would be there. He could not bring himself to utter the words you may go but tacitly had done so by permitting her to work with the harvest unguarded.
Each evening that she met him at the door with a hug and kiss reassured him and lessened his anxiety. He had freed her, and she had chosen to stay! His world glowed with brightness and color. He noticed roadside pockets of late fall flowers, the rosy sky at sunset, an amber leaf gliding on a draft. He floated too, unable to believe his good fortune. And he ached to tell her of his lightness but lacked the words to do so.
His female. My breeder, he thought of her, even though he had accepted she would not produce him any offspring. That caused him sadness, but he would rather have Tara and no offspring than offspring and no Tara.
With dusk darkening the sky, Marlix entered the cottage.
His eye detected a shadow, a flash of movement, and instinctively he ducked. A ewer flew over his head and shattered against the door frame.
“You son of a bitch!” Tara yelled.
She hurled a cooking pot lid, and then the pot itself at his head. Marlix stepped out of the path. “Monto! What are you doing?” “How dare you! How fucking dare you?” This time she lobbed a bowl, one of his boots, and a tray.
He dodged the bowl and the boot; the wooden tray grazed his arm. “You are angry about something.” He stalked toward her. “You may talk to me, but I will not allow you to throw things.” What could have enraged her so? What had changed since that morning? Monto! He did not understand her moods.
“Oh, you won’t allow it?” She scooted behind the table. A vase of flowers sat in the center. Water sprayed when she flung it at his face. He deflected the vessel with his forearm, and it shattered on the floor. She dodged his reach, transforming common objects into missiles.
“Stop it, this instant.” His face hardened.
“Fuck you.” She fastened her hand around the only other thing on the table, an empty tankard, and targeted the left side of his head. Marlix jerked right, but at the last second she adjusted her aim, and the heavy stein clipped his right temple.
"Enough!” he roared and eliminated her shield by sending the massive table skidding into the door. She had only a moment to blink before he hauled her off her feet. She struck him with her fists, interspersing Terran into the Parseon language— epithets, he suspected.
“You lying, cheating, rat bastard!” She pounded on his chest.
He carried her struggling body to the bench. She fought, but her strength could not match his. Another of her shifts fell to ruin as he tore it from neck to hem. The sudon hung on a hook across the room, so he grabbed the long-handled brush she used for bathing and taming her hair.
“Let me go, you asshole.” Tara swung at him, but he blocked her blow and hauled her over his lap. Without preamble, he cracked the flat wooden brush in the middle of one buttock.
“Fucker!” she screamed.
He landed two rapid hard swats.
She let loose a steam of invective.
“I do not understand your words—”
“Moron fucker—”
“—But I am not mentally deficient. I know you are screaming obscenities in your language, and I will not allow you to address me in such a disrespectful manner. This”—he delivered a scorching whack—“is for ‘rat bastard.’
“And for ‘ fucker.’” He measured his stroke and stung her reddening skin. Anger suffused him as he listed the names she’d called him. “‘Asshole’”—Smack—“Moron fucker’”—Smack—“Oh, and, ‘son of a bitch’”—Smack—“Is there anything else you’d like to say to me?” He taunted her.
“I hate you.” She spit at him.
Tara had hurled that at him before also. She used her words like weapons, while he had been patient and accommodating. He had relaxed Protocol for her benefit, while she responded with disrespect and disobedience. And he, an Alpha Commander, had tolerated it. How galling. His affection for her had influenced his judgment in the most deleterious manner.
Now she had progressed from a verbal assault to a physical one. He assessed the damage she’d wreaked. The cottage appeared as if it had ransacked by invaders. He shook his head and returned his focus to a thrashing and cursing Tara. Her behavior demonstrated the repercussions of ignoring Protocol. Dissent. Rebellion. Chaos.
With rapid and forceful strokes, he paddled the fleshy part of her buttocks. She fought, kicking and twisting.
“As long as you resist, I will continue to punish you,” he said. Her buttocks glowed red.
“Go to hell,” she yelled, but after a few more strokes of the paddle, she stopped writhing and fell silent. He delivered a couple more swats for good measure and then lifted her onto her feet to stand between his legs. He gripped her arms. Discipline had done little to dampen her mutinous spirit or improve her attitude. She compressed her lips into an angry line, and her eyes radiated animosity and—he frowned—hurt and betrayal? Because he’d punished her? Marlix scanned her face. “Why are you behaving like this?” he asked.
She averted her gaze and refused to speak.
“As you wish.” He set her aside, stood up, and glanced at her feet. He’d stripped her naked, but she still wore her boots. “Clean up the mess.”
Slowly she lifted her chin. A new spark of rebellion glinted in her eyes. “I will not.”
Spanking with the brush had not done any good. The wood had left some dark spots, and further chastisement with the makeshift implement would only bruise her more. He had no wish to hurt her, but he could not allow her to defy him.
“Very well.” He strode across the room and grabbed the sudon.
Tara flew for the door, but he intercepted her before she got halfway there and hauled her struggling body back to the bench, sat, and positioned her over his lap, tipping her head toward the floor. She kicked, and he swung his leg to subdue hers, but only succeeded in capturing one limb. The position served to part her thighs, and he could see her sex. Despite his anger, or perhaps because of it, the urge to use her arose with his manhood. Taking her was his right. Perhaps leniency and coddling had caused the problem all along.
Marlix raised the sudon and snapped it on the reddest center of one cheek. With the blood drawn so close to the surface by the brush paddling, her body absorbed the sudon’s venom immediately. Tara shrieked with pain. He laid three more strokes to the same spot, then four to the other side.
She had dissolved into sobs by the time he ceased. “Shall I continue, or will you clean up the mess?” he asked.
“N-no.” Her body shook.
“No, you do not wish me to continue or no, you won’t clean up the mess?”
“N-no, I don’t w-want you to continue.”
“Beginning this moment forward, you will address me with proper respect and use my title. I am Alpha. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” Her body lay limp.
He smacked her with the sudon, and she howled. “Yes, what?” he said. “Y-yes, A-alpha,” she cried.
Just Right!
