Salvation: Saving Setora Book Seven

by Dark, Raven

  “You are, Master,” I whispered, meaning every word all the way to my bones.

  He ran his fingers over my ass cheeks again. “I hate that you made me do this.” His voice was soft, yet it brimmed with so much hurt that it strangled me.

  I hated that I’d let him down.

  “Three strikes,” Hawk informed me now. “You will count each one. Do you understand?”

  Three. Maker help me. The last time this had happened, Sheriff had whipped my ass, and it had stung like fire for days. Would it hurt worse when Hawk did it? Only three strikes, but with Hawk’s trained knowledge of pain and weapons-use as a warrior, it might as well have been a hundred.

  “Yes, Master.”

  “I will not tie you in place, and I will not hold you down. I will not make this easy on you. You will hold yourself in place for every strike. If you move, or you try to get away, I will add another strike. Do you understand?”

  Terror that I would move out of reflex seized me. I trusted him. Maker’s Light, I trusted him...

  I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to tamp down my growing panic. “Yes, Master.” The words came out like a mantra.

  With my back to him, I felt more than saw him raise the switch. A beat passed. Then another. My breath caught in my throat. Hawk held me there, suspended in a lapse of time between anticipatory trepidation and panic for what felt like an eternity.

  The switch cut the air with a soft swoosh. It didn’t hit my ass cheeks as I expected. Instead, it cracked across my thighs, an even, well-placed strike.

  Pain blazed with the fire of a hundred suns. A cry ripped from me, a half scream, half sob. My fists gripped the top end of the matt so hard my knuckles turned white, but other than a jolt at the pain, I didn’t move.

  “How many? Count out the strike,” Hawk ordered.

  “One…” I breathed.

  “See? You do still know how to behave like a slave.”

  Anger shot through me, hot and hard. Until now, I’d felt too ashamed of my actions, too horrified that I’d hurt him to feel indignant or mad, but the way he kept using the word slave cut too deep to ignore. I didn’t dare react to it, though.

  Out of the corner of my eye, his arm raised, waiting there for a beat. Then another.

  The switch thwacked across my thighs again, the crack resounding through the hut, and I thought, the whole village.

  “Two,” I whined.

  Again, his arm lifted.

  My muscles coiled, my whole body trembling.

  He waited.

  My heart just about stopped.

  All right, so maybe even Hawk liked to drag things out. I squeezed my eyes shut, my heart threatening to pound its way right out of my chest. I gripped the mat for dear life.

  Thwack.

  I don’t know how I managed to get the word out. “Three…”

  He set the switch down beside him on the floor and I heard him get up, heard him unzip his pack, then the shuffle of him getting on his knees again beside me. I looked over my shoulder at him, but when I tried to sit up, he set his hand on my back.

  “Stay where you are. I need to put ointment on these welts.”

  Sniffling, I settled back onto my stomach.

  The slow roll of a cap being unscrewed met my ears, then the slosh of lotion between Hawk’s palms. The lovely sent of something I couldn’t identify, a subtle, floral essence, filled my nose.

  Oh, how I wanted to accept what he was doing as an indication that he still loved me as he’d said he did earlier that day. But as he lathered ointment between his hands and then rubbed it gently into my thighs, I couldn’t help noticing the distance he imparted in every touch. He was being thorough, ensuring the welts wouldn’t get infected, but nothing more.

  The ointment seeped into my skin, taking away some of the sting, but that was just a side effect of the cream, not a deliberate act of compassion on his part.

  Unwilling to let him see my tears, I turned my face away.

  Hawk finished rubbing the ointment in, then put the cream away. A moment later, after I heard him preparing the syringe of the drug Doc prescribed to keep Julian away, a cloth moist with antiseptic swiped my arm. I felt a prick there and jolted.

  His silence was terrible, deep and bottomless.

  After what Sheriff had done, under normal circumstances I’d have sought comfort from Hawk. What had happened between Sheriff and me cut all the deeper, knowing that I couldn’t.

  Hawk lay across the mat, almost gently pulling me into his arms. He covered us with the warm blanket, chasing away the slight evening chill. His arms closed around me, his palm massaging and then cupping one butt cheek.

  The embrace confused me. After all that I’d done, I’d expected him to just leave, abandoning me to my misery. His grip caged me in heat, in the soothing warmth I’d grown used to from him. It should have made me feel cared for and protected, yet there was still something distant about it, as if for all that I lay in his embrace, he was emotionally keeping me at arm’s length.

  “Master…” I trailed off.

  What could I say? Part of me wanted to tell him to let me go, but the only place I could go was to Pretty Boy and Steel’s. Yes, that would go over well. He’d only feel like I was taking their sides, or worse, crying to them about what he’d done. The other half wanted to apologize, but I doubted that would be welcome, either. I couldn’t do that without coming off as if I was trying to get back into his good graces.

  Hawk turned his head and brushed his lips across my forehead. “You’d rather be anywhere but here, wouldn’t you, Kitten?”

  I was Kitten again. That should have made me feel better, but instead the word felt hollow and empty.

  “No, Master.” I wiped a tear off my cheek before it could fall on his chest and tried to keep my voice from sounding cracked.

  “Don’t lie to me again,” he murmured.

  My lips twisted with the effort to hold in a frustrated sob. “What do you want me to say, Master?”

  He squeezed my hip and nuzzled my hair. “Sleep, Kitten. It will hurt less tomorrow.”

  I didn’t know whether he meant the welts from his switch, or the pain of knowing that things weren’t the same between us. Or if he was talking about my...break up…with Sheriff. Whatever the case, I very much doubted it.

  Chapter 16

  Ritual of Penance

  As soon as I woke up the next morning, my stomach tied itself into a tight knot.

  In that moment between full wakefulness and sleep, I’d hoped what had happened last night had been nothing more than a terrible dream.

  Hawk hadn’t switched me like a slave, and I hadn’t lost his love and respect.

  He wasn’t set to whip two of my men for stealing from his Yantu Order.

  And Sheriff hadn’t effectively cut me out of his life, systematically shattering my world.

  My mind had even gone so far as to revert back in time, reversing events so that Sheriff hadn’t really gone blind.

  Indeed, everything that had happened over the course of weeks, very nearly felt as if the club was being meticulously torn apart, dismantled piece by systematic piece by some heartless and unforgiving god.

  But as I opened my eyes and rolled over onto my back, evidence quickly made it clear this was no dream.

  The instant the back of my thighs came in contact with the leather mat I was lying on, a flash of pain made me wince. Tightness choked my throat as I rolled onto my side.

  It had really happened. All of it.

  My hand brushed the area of the mat beside me. It was empty, the leather cool against my skin. Hawk. I swallowed the lump in my throat at his absence.

  How could I have so quickly caused so much damage to everything I held dear?

  Suddenly, I missed Pretty Boy and Steel with a painful intensity. Protective love for them welled in me, an urge to somehow spare them the fate that lay ahead of them, only I couldn’t interfere. Not again.

  A few voices carried indistinctly from out
side. I lifted my eyes to the window behind my head, which looked out of the side of the hut. Silvery, early morning light streamed into the room. The sun hadn’t fully risen yet. It couldn’t have been past six AM, but I felt anything but tired.

  Hawk had promised that what he did today wouldn’t be as hard on Pretty Boy and Steel or on the club as I feared. I needed to trust him, but apprehension filled me nonetheless.

  I sat up, about to get dressed and grab a bite to eat.

  “We’ll be leaving in a about two hours, Blade.” Hawk’s voice drifted from the door of the hut. “You stay with Sheriff until we get back.”

  “Sure thing, General,” Blade said.

  “Take Tank and Gorilla with you. I don’t want to come back and find Julian’s men holding him hostage.”

  Tank and Gorilla, his other two guards.

  A new kind of apprehension tugged at me, mixing with hope at the sound of Hawk’s deep, bass voice, and I tensed, feeling like a coil about to spring. I couldn’t expect things to be perfect between us after one night of sleep.

  “It’s nice to see someone is following my orders, Blade. Thanks,” Hawk said.

  “The others will come around,” Blade encouraged. “You’ll see.”

  Hawk appeared in the doorway to the bedroom, two paper bags perched on one palm, two mugs in the other. “Morning, Kitten. Breakfast time.”

  My heart gave a funny jolt at the nickname. Sure, he’d called me Kitten last night, but my heart chose to take his use of it at present as a good sign.

  “Morning, Master.”

  He set the bags and mugs on the floor. When he straightened, I studied his features, searching for a sign of the warmth I’d become accustomed to seeing in his eyes when he looked at me. The love I’d recently seen there. The usual stoic mask veiled his features, giving me little. His expression was calm and unreadable.

  “Are you sore?” he asked. His voice was like his expression, quiet, calm, impenetrable.

  Tamping down my anxiety, I nodded.

  He returned my nod. “I’ll take care of that. Lie down on your stomach.”

  I obeyed. Hawk went to his pack, and when he came back, dropping to his knees, I heard the familiar sound of a cap being unscrewed. The slosh of cream between his hands.

  For a long moment, he said nothing. The silence that stretched between us felt achingly tense, coiling around my heart in a tight fist. The air seemed to thicken until I could barely breathe. I wanted to apologize, but I’d already done that so many times last night that at this point doing so again would only have sounded like begging.

  “We’ll be leaving as soon as the Temple’s bell sounds, signaling the end of morning prayer,” he said finally, rubbing the soothing cream onto my thighs and making my muscles melt under his expert hands. “When I’m done here, eat and then we’ll get you a bath before we go.”

  I looked up at him. “Where are we going, Master?”

  “We have to leave the village in order for me to administer a corporal penance.”

  Because of the village’s anti-violence laws.

  You mean so you can whip your best friends bloody, I thought savagely, though I wisely kept the thought to myself.

  I rested my chin mutinously on my arms while Hawk rubbed the excess cream into my legs. He ran his palms up and down them, massaging as he went.

  “You’re still mad at me for this, I see.” His palms made a final pass down my leg, and then he gave my ass an admonishing tap. “Sulk if you want to, it won’t change my mind. Come on, sit up and eat.”

  Pushing out a sigh, I sat up on the mat, cross-legged, and he handed me one of the bags he’d brought. While he got up and washed his hands in a basin on a stand in the corner, I opened the bag and unwrapped the sandwich inside.

  One bite, and I groaned in pleasure. Thick slices of roast beef with cheese and a hint of spicy mustard made my taste buds explode with delight.

  “Good?” He dried his hands on a towel.

  I nodded. “Thank you, Master.”

  Hawk sat across from me on the mat and unwrapped his own sandwich.

  Perhaps it should have made me feel better that he wanted to eat with me, but we finished breakfast in silence, and he rarely looked at me. Hawk reached over and picked up one of the mugs, downing the contents. Then he picked up the other and drew out a familiar packet.

  My morning dose of iris root.

  As soon as I drank the tea down, he took me out behind the hut where a large, squat wooden barrel filled with hot water sat. Someone had obviously just set it up, because steam still wafted off the water, evaporating into the cool morning air.

  I stripped off my frock, stepped in, and sat down as he instructed, folding my knees up to my chest to make enough room.

  “You don’t have to do this for me, Master. I can do it myself.” Being near him with no way to clear the air was too painful. I just wanted to be left alone.

  Hawk ignored me and washed every inch of me thoroughly, but his actions had the same distance as anything else he’d done this morning. He took care of me, made sure I had what I needed, but nothing more. When he was done, he dried me off with a big, fluffy towel, wrapping it around me and massaging my arms when I shivered.

  “It’s hardly the Grotto, is it?” he rasped.

  I chuckled, appreciating his dry brand of humor, teeth chattering. I wouldn’t read too much into his small talk.

  Back inside the hut, I dressed in my usual road rat outfit, boots, leather skirt, the kind of crop top that fascinated Ali’san. The whole time, I ached to say something, anything that would alleviate the tension between us, but what could I tell him?

  I was braiding my hair when the temple bell tolled, echoing in the distance.

  My stomach knotted for Pretty Boy and Steel. Morning prayer was finished. It was time.

  Standing next to me, Hawk’s chest rose on a big breath. An emotion I couldn’t identify flickered in his eyes before his face became a cool mask again. He took a long, thin leather whip from his pack and hung it from his belt.

  My stomach clenched, my gaze riveted to that familiar coil of black braided leather. The bane of every slave’s existence, and a weapon that had caused so much pain among the J’nai.

  Jaw tight, Hawk’s hand engulfed mine and he led the way out of the hut.

  The idea of watching Pretty Boy and Steel, two of the sweetest men I’d ever known, subjected to the same weapon as Damien made me physically ill. Some tiny, traitorous part of me hated Hawk for his intention to use it, especially on them.

  As we made our way toward Pretty Boy and Steel’s hut, I had to force myself not to argue and try to get them out of this. Hawk’s hand felt huge and hot, caging mine, possessive.

  Grim unfolded himself from a chair outside the hut and stood up, giving Hawk a nod and me a smile. Maker, he really was tall, like a pale, lithe reed in the morning light. He’d probably been sitting there talking to someone earlier, but, seated near the only door to the hut, I couldn’t help thinking he’d been put there on guard duty.

  “Please bring Pretty Boy and Steel out now, Grim.”

  Hawk’s voice wasn’t dark or cruel, only matter of fact, and yet as Grim disappeared into the hut, I half expected my two masters to be brought out in cuffs and stripped naked, devoid of any clothing that represented the club they’d betrayed, and not just because that’s how Damien did things. Even with his stoicism, Hawk’s words made me think of a warden ordering prisoners to be brought out of a cell.

  Instead, Pretty Boy stepped out and Steel followed, both dressed in their leather pants and cuts, no cuffs in sight. Relief flooded me, until I noticed something was missing.

  Nearly anytime I saw those two together, they were bantering back and forth, laughing or slinging playful insults at each other. Now, both were uncharacteristically silent. Steel patted Grim on the back. Grim clasped his hand in a brotherly shake and then left.

  Pretty Boy caught my eye and gave me a wink that made my throat tighten with lov
e for him before his arms crossed and he fixed Hawk with a mutinous look. “We’re really gonna do this, then.”

  “Yes.” Hawk’s voice was hushed with an emotion I couldn’t read. With his arms behind his back, he walked up to them, looking very much the General he now was. “But first, Master Leif said that he wasn’t receiving any visitors today, nor for a while. So count yourselves lucky that you got out of having to apologize to him.”

  I watched Steel and Pretty Boy’s faces for a reaction but received nothing.

  Pretty Boy’s eyes flicked to the whip on Hawk’s hip. He didn’t move from the front door, except to let Steel close it.

  “Are we going to have a problem, Pretty Boy?” Hawk growled.

  “That’s up to you, Hawk.”

  Half of me wanted to chuckle, while the other half wanted to tell him to cooperate and not make things worse.

  “Pretty Boy, come on.” Steel shook his shoulder. “It won’t be that bad.” Steel crossed the path and joined me and Hawk. He gave me a smile and squeezed my hand in his huge fist, probably in reassurance.

  Pretty Boy scoffed but joined us. He put himself toe to toe with Hawk, and I thought he was going to hit him. Instead, he cupped his hands and thrust his wrists out to Hawk.

  Hawk said nothing, his eyes never leaving Pretty Boy’s as he drew several lengths of rope from the inside pocket of his cut. He wound one length quickly around Pretty Boy’s wrists and tied them tight.

  He made no move to tie Steel’s hands, which made me wonder what the other ropes were for. Then I saw.

  Grim brought out a thick wooden pole and set it on the ground, standing it up on one end. The pole was about a foot wide and a little taller that Steel. I gulped.

  A whipping post.

  Grim handed Hawk a post hole digger. “Borrowed that from one of the farmers,” he said.

  “Perfect, thank you.” Hawk nodded.

  Grim left too quickly, not meeting anyone’s eyes.

  Hawk gave Steel a single nod, silent. Steel’s shoulders dropped on a sigh.

  “Yeah, well, let’s get this over with.” Steel stalked over, picked up the heavy post as if it weighed nothing, dropped to one knee, and set the post across his shoulders like a yoke, balancing the post with his hands.