by Loki Renard
“Thieves of any station will be thoroughly punished,” he rumbled. “Even mischievous little humans who believe that thieving is a good way to get the attention they need.”
“I don’t need attention!”
“You don’t need gold or jewels either,” Casimer replied. “You want for nothing, so I can only conclude that what you truly needed was to be punished. See, now, Brianna, how you are punished before all. The court will testify to it, in case you are inclined to forget.”
His palm met her skirt-clad rear over and over again, firm swats making her skin tingle and sting. The spanking itself was not overly painful. He was not trying to hurt her, she could tell that. Any dragon male was capable of much more than what the king was giving her. The sheer embarrassment of being held there over his lap in front of so many influential, elegant dragon people was most of the punishment.
There was more to come.
“Apologize now,” he said, pausing his punishment. “Beg forgiveness from those you have wronged.”
“No,” she refused with a gasp. She couldn’t bring herself to apologize to these beautiful people. She wasn’t sorry. She was angry and upset and embarrassed, but not sorry at all. “They have hundreds of trinkets just like the ones I took. What do they care?”
“That is not how property works,” the king growled. She felt his powerful thighs shift beneath her and then his hand slid over her bottom, found the hem of her skirt and drew it up, revealing her bare cheeks.
Brianna let out a scandalized shriek and tried to push the skirt back down, but Casimer pinned her hands behind her back and started to spank her bare, his hard hand meeting her tender cheeks, already tenderized and reddened by the first round of discipline.
“Since your masters left you have taunted and tormented and looked for ways to disrupt this place. You may resent me, little human, but you will not take that out on the others who live here and have the right to their property.”
The spanking was starting to make her rear ache, every fresh slap bringing with it a burst of fire that made her yowl. The dragons seemed to be enjoying her torment; through eyes welling with tears she could see smiles from the onlookers as they whispered to one another.
Casimer spanked her long and firmly, slowing and softening the slaps a little. She would have appreciated the mercy if she had not figured he was giving it so that he could keep her there, naked from the waist down, her fiery bottom blazing like a ruby for all to enjoy.
“You’ve been very naughty. Naughty girls have their bottoms spanked,” Casimer intoned. “And they are sent to bed afterward.”
Brianna blushed furiously, her face almost the same color as her bottom. Of all the possible punishments, she had never figured that a public spanking would be on the agenda. She had not imagined that she would be caught at all, but if she had she had reckoned on being locked up or something.
Casimer was not treating her as if she were a fully fledged, hardened criminal. He was not even treating her offense as something incredibly serious. He was, however, giving her every reason to never so much as think about misbehaving again. This punishment was as juvenile as it was embarrassing.
“Now are you ready to apologize?”
Brianna whimpered softly. “…sorry.”
“Speak up,” Casimer encouraged her. “There are many who would hear your words of contrition.”
“Sorry,” she repeated, not all that much louder.
His hand landed on her bottom hard as a thunderclap.
“Sorry!” She gasped the word in a loud shriek that easily reached the back of the great hall thanks to the incredible acoustics of the place.
Casimer held her firm and landed six more hard swats to her rear, three to each of her poor, sore cheeks. Brianna cried through all of them, tears of shame running down her cheeks.
“Sorry is but the beginning of your atonement,” he said. “I will have my men investigate your doings, and if I find new evidence of misbehavior, you will feel my hand upon your hide again, little human.”
Brianna could only whimper. Her bottom was blazing, her pride was thoroughly wounded, and she could not even remember if there was anything else she would be in trouble for. She lay there over the king’s lap, totally surrendered to his will as his large hand circled her bare cheeks for a brief moment, soothing her for all of a second.
“Now,” he said, standing her on her feet and letting her skirt fall down over her punished bottom. “Go to bed.”
Brianna did not need to be told twice. She clapped her hands over her sore bottom and fled the room, tears streaming down her face. She made her way straight back to the room she had shared with Valkimer and Chak, diving beneath the covers where their scent was still strong.
There she started to sob, great body-shaking sobs that made it impossible to breathe. She missed them so very much, and she did not like it at the palace. Chak and Valkimer had treated her like a simple pet at the beginning, but even then they had treated her like something that mattered. Here in the palace she was nothing more than a curiosity. Most people didn’t even talk to her, if they looked at her at all. It was fucked up, how she felt more like a person while leashed with one of Valkimer’s twisted little inventions than she felt around the courtiers and nobles who wandered around the palace in their eternal middle ages cosplay.
“They all look stupid as hell,” she muttered to herself.
For the first time since coming to the dragon realm, she felt homesick and not just for Valkimer and Chak, but for Earth. People had treated her like scum there too, but at least… she sighed. No. This place was still better. Even with the humiliation of being publicly punished. If she had been caught stealing that much stuff back home, she wouldn’t have gotten her butt whipped. She would have ended up behind bars for a long time. As fucked up as Casimer was, he had been much, much kinder than she really deserved.
“Brianna? I heard what happened.” Mika’s soft sympathetic voice broke into Brianna’s misery as the crown princess entered the room. “Is it true what they say, that you’ve been taking jewels from nobles and giving them to servants?”
“Yeah,” Brianna admitted.
Mika’s mouth opened in surprise. “But why?”
“I don’t know, I thought it was… something to do. Something nice for the servants.”
A little nervous giggle escaped the crown princess. “The servants are all being searched now. I don’t think you will be very popular among them after this.”
“Probably not. I’m not very popular anywhere.”
“You have to stop feeling sorry for yourself.” There was a sharp note in Mika’s voice. “Casimer spanked you a little. I know it wasn’t that bad because you have the covers over your butt. If he’d done a decent job you’d be bare-assed.”
“He hates me,” Brianna mumbled. “He did it in front of everyone.”
“Are you kidding? If he hated you, it would have gone much worse for you,” Mika said. “You’re so fortunate Casimer has a soft spot for human women, especially the feisty ones. He’s giving you what he thinks you need.”
“I did not need to get my ass beat in front of all those people.”
“Maybe you did,” Mika said. “You practically begged him to. You practically ran up to him, threw yourself down in front of him, and pleaded for him to whip your butt. You got what you were asking for, Brianna.”
“Did he ever do that to you?”
“No,” Mika giggled. “But I’m not silly enough to act up when other people are around. And I’m not silly enough to steal from the nobles who live here. You can’t challenge a king, subvert his orders, and turn the palace into a den of thieves and get away with it. He had to make an example of you.”
The door opened again. Casimer entered, his sleeves still rolled up over his large powerful forearms, an expression of near paternal disappointment on his features.
“Good evening, Brianna.”
“Hi,” Brianna said shyly, avoiding Casimer’s gaze.
She could not look at him without remembering what he had done to her. And she couldn’t remember what he had done to her without blushing all over.
“You seem to be in better spirits than earlier,” he observed. “Are you feeling a little more settled now?”
“Maybe,” she said, biting her lower lip.
He made a low rumbling sound, something like a chuckle. “I should have spanked you in the first hour after your masters left. That would have settled you, no doubt—and saved you from the greater punishment you ended up enduring.”
“No,” Brianna said. “I would have just been worse. I wanted to hate you and that would have given me a really good reason.”
“Ah, and do you still want to hate me?”
She risked looking at him out of the corner of her eye. Every time she’d looked at Casimer before this moment she had seen a cruel and commanding king who had denied her the company of her lovers. She saw someone to be loathed, raged against, undermined. Now, with her butt still burning, her pride wounded, but a part of her feeling full in a way it had not in a long time, she saw a wise, stern man who was taking care of her even though he could have just as easily locked her in a dungeon for the duration of her stay.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I was being a really huge brat.”
“You were,” he agreed. “Now, if that’s over, you might be able to enjoy your time here? It may be months until they return. Lazarus is wily prey, and he will no doubt lead them on quite a chase.”
She sat up and her face fell at his words. “Months?”
“They can go swiftly, if you allow yourself to settle here and enjoy all the palace has to offer,” Casimer said. “You do not have to suffer the entire time.”
Her stomach was churning. Her skin was sweaty and clammy. Months? They were going to be gone for months?
“I don’t feel well,” Brianna whimpered. “I feel kind of sick…”
Casimer’s and Mika’s concerned faces spun before her as she was drawn into the darkness of a dead faint.
Chapter Nineteen
For many lonely weeks, Chak and Valkimer tracked Lazarus across the realm. It was not as difficult as they had first imagined to get his scent as Lazarus had left something of a swath of destruction in his wake. Tavern bills unpaid, wenches thoroughly wenched, the occasional crop burned. Unfortunately he kept moving from place to place, often leaving in the dead of night so none would see where he had gone and it was not until fresh chaos sprang up elsewhere that the trail grew warm again.
They stopped every few miles and asked the locals if they had seen anyone matching Lazarus’ description, either in walking form or flight form. Many hadn’t, but quite a few had, and so day after day they drew closer to finding him.
“The evil one, you have to stop him! He’s killed half our stock, roasted it with his breath, and devoured it whole.”
It was rare for dragons to actually consume in their flight forms. It was unnecessary for the most part. Nourishing the walking body took far less food, and the flight form was sustained by the very radiation that made it impossible for humans to survive in their realm. Eating in flight form was either done out of desperation or cruelty. Valkimer suspected that in Lazarus’ case, it was for both reasons.
“He’s made his perch up there,” the farmer said, pointing to a rocky outcropping. “We’ve tried to drive him off, but he has a much bigger flight form than any of us.”
“But not bigger than us,” Chak noted.
Peasants had very small flight forms, sometimes little bigger than their walking forms. It took a warrior’s lineage to achieve the larger forms. Lazarus had the blood of many great warlords in his veins. So too did Chak and Valkimer.
“Shall we fly up there and take him out?” Chak was impatient.
“I think we should lie in wait for him to take flight,” Valkimer said. “The element of surprise will be greater. Besides, he may simply barricade himself in up there, if there is a suitable cave. And I am in no mood for a siege. Farmer! When does he come to feed?”
“Most evenings around dusk, sir.”
“Then that is when we will take him,” Valkimer said. “We’ll hide on opposite sides of the field beneath the turf and take our dragon forms when he comes down to take the stock. Do you have an empty barn where we may ready ourselves?”
“Yes, sirs, please… this way…”
* * *
As the sun waned on the horizon and the shadows of dusk began to gather with a cooling breeze, Chak and Valkimer lay naked underneath their sod covers, waiting for their prey.
The heavy wing beats of a dragon sounded overhead, then there was a silence as it glided and a heavy thud of landing. That was their cue. As one man, Valkimer and Chak burst from the ground, their flight forms shining in the last of the sunlight. Lazarus never had a chance. They landed atop him, claws and teeth taking hold of scaly flesh, pinning his wings to the ground so he could not fly.
Lazarus let out a roar of anger and agony, which transformed to a quieter, but no less enraged growl as he transformed beneath them, taking his walking form. Chak and Valkimer did the same and within seconds there were three naked men in the field, one pinned below the other two, growling with fury.
“Easy, boys,” Lazarus snarled. “So you’ve got me out of the sky. What’s the plan now?”
“It’s time to go back to Earth,” Valkimer stated. “Get him up, Chak.”
They marched Lazarus into a nearby barn, where a glowing portal looking out over an Earthly desert stood. Valkimer had set it up before they took their hiding spots, ensuring that they would not have far to go to banish Lazarus once more.
Lazarus looked at the portal and the world beyond and a shade of fear passed over his features. “You mean you’re too cowardly to kill me outright, so you will send me back where I will age so quickly my bones will be gleaming in the sun before you take your next shit.”
“Casimer’s orders are to send you back to the human realm after we have questioned you.”
“Questioned me? I have no reason to tell you anything. Are you the king’s torturers now?” Lazarus chuckled. “I’ve heard what you did. Selling human wenches is a grand business plan. Pity you had to destroy it by turning yourselves in.”
Valkimer and Chak gave his taunts no reply.
“I have a better offer for you. Come back to the human realm with me. I have all the female flesh you could ever desire at my disposal. Come live like kings away from the tyrant Casimer. There is freedom in the human realm unlike any to be found here.”
“Then why did you return?”
Lazarus’ dark gaze shifted between them. “I had my reasons, boys. You opened a doorway for me and I stepped through it being the upmost among them. You freed me.”
“By accident.”
“There was no accident!” Lazarus laughed. “You sent a boy to me and made me certain that there was a portal. You used me for information. And now you want more before sending me back to my death. As I said, that is not a good deal, and I have no reason to take it.”
Valkimer and Chak looked at one another. They were not torturers. That did not mean they were entirely out of cards to play.
“There is something we can give you,” Chak said. “The chance to leave this place with some dignity. We could capture you, wrap you in chains, take you before Casimer and tell him that you refuse to leave. What do you think he will do then? Or you can run. We can set the royal armies on you, have them hunt you like a rat across this realm. In the end, you could be dragged out of some hiding hole somewhere, humiliated before all you once commanded. Or you can go with us now and return to this world of freedom and sex without ever laying eyes on another soldier.”
“Smart boy,” Lazarus smirked.
“And, of course, you would tell us what we need to protect this realm, so we do not need to send for someone less ethical than ourselves.”
“Oh, of course,” Lazarus said. “And you’ll believe me, no matter what I tell you
because you have no way of independently verifying any of it.”
“We will be sending our own scouts and spies,” Valkimer growled. “If they do not corroborate what you tell us…”
“Yes, yes, of course, another threat,” Lazarus sneered. “The full forces of Casimer’s realm are against me and I have no choice but to comply. That is the measure of it.”
“Yes,” Valkimer agreed.
“Then I will tell you this. You need not fear an imminent human invasion. Yes, humans were working on altering their genetic material. Princess Mika was essentially rescued from groups attempting to use her flesh for prototypes. There is no doubt in my mind that the dragon realm will inevitably be breached again, but not immediately.”
“Why?”
Lazarus looked them dead in the eye and pronounced two words that barely made sense to them. “Budget cuts.”
“What?”
“Humans can only get things done when their governments approve of them, and their governments are swayed by… you will not believe this… by the common people. They vote for everything. There is corruption of course, but military budgets are especially vulnerable to public whim. They don’t like their taxes being used for invading alternative realms, as it turns out. Far too busy deciding whether or not to invade one another. They have very short attention spans and little grasp of history.
“Remember how fast human time passes compared to this realm. To us here, it seems like only yesterday that the sky tore open and some human in a humming metal cylinder crashed in the royal city. But it has been almost sixty-five human years since the invasion. Most of the people affected at that time are dead. Some still remember, but they were young when it happened and are now far too old to influence policy. Humans have forgotten our realm before, and I believe they are forgetting it again.
“There are private groups still working on the project, shadow funded perhaps by some governments, but they have stalled. When Mika was removed, so too was the last real dragon DNA. Until, of course, Casimer sent me to the human realm. You realize that in sending me back there, you are potentially delivering them the keys to the invasion your king so fears. But I suppose that is a risk he is willing to take, given his viewing chambers.”