Page 100 of Slaying the Shifter Prince
I spun from him, hands fisting. “Oh, you lot fucking can.” My laugh shook as I looked for something that wouldmakehim admit the truth.
His belt lay on the coffee table with the rest of his clothes. I snatched it, hand trembling as I turned and showed it to him in the mirror. “There’s something else beneath your sweet story about submitting to me. There’s always something else with your kind. Some secret twisting between your words. The lie unsaid.Tell me.”
He inclined his head again. “Give it to me, love. I can take it. Whatever you have to give, I accept.”
“You fucking…” I shook my head and looped the belt, keeping the buckle and end in my hand. Deep breaths. I didn’t want to do this in anger. It was just to get him to back down. When my trembling subsided, I held up the belt again and gave him a chance to tell me to stop.
He didn’t.
I struck it across his backside. Not hard, but over the same point I’d smacked him.
His tail twitched, but he kept his hands clasped behind his back. “Thank you, love.”
“Stop saying that.”
“What would you prefer I call you? Mistress? Queen?”
“Stop thanking me.”
He shook his head, smiling in the mirror. It wasn’t a smirk or a cruel grin. Just a smile. A soft one, a regretful one. “I can’t do that. Please continue.”
So he’d be obedient, but only when he chose?
I gritted my teeth and cracked the belt across his arse again. This time the slithering thing in me took over, pulling my muscles harder and faster than before, and I left a red welt on his golden skin.
The sight of it burned, like I was the one who’d been struck. A sickly cold rolled over me in horrible contrast with the heat of my anger.
“Thank you, love.”
I hit him again. Another red welt. Again. Another.
Each one I hated. Each one he thanked me for.
Sickness and rage battled inside me, each riling the other up higher and higher until I was drowning in the horror of them. His backside was a series of streaks, such a bright red they almost glowed.
I hated them. They were an outrage upon his perfect body.
I hated myself for inflicting them. And I hated myself for hating it.
But in the midst of all this hate—a feeling that I’d indulged in all the time I’d been here—I couldn’t bring myself to hatehim.
Hate wasn’t the worst of all feelings. It was guilt. It made me long to return to my former numbness. Anything to escape it.
Shaking, I flung the belt to the floor.
I didn’t want to hurt him.
I had once, but not anymore.
“Tell me.” My voice came out breathless, pathetic, and I hated myself even more for it. I dragged him off the table.
He didn’t fight me—he was strong enough to resist easily, but he let me fling him to the floor, and he knelt before me once more. He looked up at me, cheeks flushed, eyes glassy, sweat on his brow.
I’d hurt him. I’d really hurt him. And he’d never once asked me to stop.
“Tell me the truth, Sepher,” I shouted, voice cracking on his name. “Tell me why you’re letting me do this.”
“Because…” His teeth showed as he spoke, blood on them from my backhanded strike. “I love you.”
