Mated Against Her Will (Captives of Pra'Kir Book 2)

by Dinah McLeod

  “The Pres-i-dent.” He sounded it out slowly, his eyes never leaving her own. “And why is that important?”

  Sarai’s brow furrowed. “You do not have a president here? Who rules your planet, then?”

  “Ah.” His expression cleared. “You mean the Premier.”

  “Yes. Yes, that.”

  “You are the ruler of your home planet?”

  His voice had gone deadly soft again. Why, when he spoke quietly like that, did it make her more nervous than she’d ever been when yelled at by other men? Perhaps because he wasn’t a man—and whatever he was, was unlike anyone she’d ever come into contact with before.

  “I am.” Damn it, her voice had quavered slightly. Surely he hadn’t noticed.

  “Are you quite certain?”

  “You don’t believe me?” she demanded, trying to make herself sound outraged. Trouble was, Sarai had never been that good a liar. And since she didn’t believe herself it wasn’t hard to understand why he didn’t either. But she was going to give it all she had, damn it!

  “I didn’t say that,” he replied, his voice just as calm, just as soft. How was it that the males of this planet—she’d had no interaction with any women thus far, so for all she knew it was a strictly male trait—managed to hide their emotions so well when hers always seemed to bubble right to the surface? It wasn’t fair. “What I will say is this: I am very, very good at reading people on my planet. Much to my surprise, I’m even better at reading you. I can tell when your heartbeat shifts, when your pulse picks up. Perhaps our species are too different, but in this matter, I believe we are the same: for us, those are signs of a person who is not telling the truth. So even if I could not read it on someone’s face, or in their tone, I could still detect that they were not being honest with me. And there are several issues with your story. For one, if you are the Premier of your planet, why would they send you? Who is taking your place? I am told that you cannot return to your homeland—surely, someone of such importance would have several such vessels as the one you arrived in at their disposal. So, I will ask you one time, and one time only, and the gods of Na help you if you lie to me. Are you who you claim to be?”

  Sarai took in everything he said, her brain spinning at the implication even as the blood drained from her face. He could tell if she was lying without even looking at her? How was that even possible? And yet, she somehow knew that, for him, it was. She knew by the way he didn’t break eye contact, the way that his expression remained inscrutable, that his people were very different from her own. With a sigh, she hung her head. “No,” she mumbled under her breath. She already knew that due to his excellent ears, he would have no trouble hearing her.

  “I didn’t think so. I suppose I should thank you for your honesty, and I would, if you hadn’t lied in the first place.” He tsked his tongue. “You were already in trouble for trying to escape, but now we must add lying to today’s transgressions. I am afraid that you will find the consequences for such things on our planet are quite severe compared to what you’re used to on…”

  “Earth,” she offered, her insides begin to quiver at what he was saying.

  “Ea-rth,” he repeated, making a face as he sounded it out. “What an odd name.”

  Sarai gave him a bemused look—because, really, was Pra’kir so much better?—but didn’t respond.

  “Come here.”

  She gave him a dubious look. “Why?”

  “I do not have to tell you the why. You have been told to come, now, you obey.”

  “That’s not how it works.” She clenched and unclenched her hands in her lap, feeling the unmistakable need to flee. In fight or flight, she’d take flight every time. But she was strongly beginning to suspect that she was going to have to go against her normal instincts this time.

  “Maybe not where you come from, but it is time for you to realize that you are not on your own planet anymore. The entire purpose of fostering you aliens—” He held up his hand the moment she opened her mouth to protest. “Your people is to teach you to live on our planet. And running away, lying, those things are simply not accepted here.”

  Sarai took a deep breath to attempt to calm her racing pulse. Every muscle in her body screamed at her to make a run for it. “Look,” she said at last, “I am very sorry that I tried to run away.” Sorry, not sorry, she added to herself. “I am sorry that I tried to lie to you.” Only sorry that it failed. “I understand now that those things are not acceptable and I’ll do better in the future.”

  Binnix stared back at her, seemingly unmoved. “I am glad that you realize your errors. Now it is time to suffer the consequence for them.”

  “But—”

  “Come here.”

  She shook her head, scooting back in her chair until she was pressed as firmly as possible against the hard back. “What’s wrong with you? I said I was sorry.”

  “Yes, you did. However, you’re not acting sorry, which makes me doubt the sincerity of your words.”

  “Don’t your people bend on anything? Are you all this rigid and unreasonable? Or is that just you?”

  “I don’t think it’s unreasonable. On my planet, we do what we say we are going to do. I have told you that you will be punished, so you will. And I won’t be discussing it further. Now, come here.”

  The command, given quietly, nonetheless had a firmness behind it that sent a nervous shiver running along her spine. There was no way she was going to go over there. Even if her legs could move, she still wouldn’t be stupid enough to go within arm’s reach of the angry alien. The only other option left was to fight like mad when he inevitably came to get here.

  Binnix seemed to read the situation quickly, because he was on his feet and coming at her with rapid, long strides in mere moments.

  Sarai waited until he was close, then pulled her legs up on the chair and kicked them out toward him. However, either her captor was expecting such a move, or he was in possession of lightning fast reflexes. Either way, the result was that he blocked her legs from hitting him and lashed a hand out to grab her by the arm. She used the other arm to hit him, trying to get him to let her go, but it was like hitting a log. She was sure she was doing more damage to her hand than to him.

  “Let me go! Leave me alone!” she yelled at the top of her voice.

  Binnix winced. “Stop that screeching at once.”

  Sarai was trying to kick, hitting and seeing that her yelling was the only thing that had gotten any sort of response, she opened her mouth and let fly with a loud, wordless howl.

  Her captor responded by putting his hand over her mouth, so Sarai did the only thing she could do. She bit down. When he growled at her, the first angry sound she’d heard him make since being in his presence, she knew that it had been a mistake. She responded by dropping her hand, her legs stilling.

  Binnix, sensing her reluctant compliance, took his hand away, frowning at it as he turned it over and looked for evidence of where her teeth had been.

  “I’m sorry,” she offered, her voice a frightened squeak.

  “Oh, trust me, you will be.”

  Chapter 4

  Within mere moments Sarai found herself yanked from the chair, Binnix took her place and then pulled her to him before placing her over his knees. It took seconds and he handled her as easily as though she weighed no more than a small bag of sugar. Though his actions were very decisive, he didn’t hurt her. Though she felt sure that she wouldn’t be able to say that shortly.

  “I am going to punish you now,” he informed her matter-of-factly, as though the infantile position she was in over his lap left any doubt. “I am going to remove this garment, and using my hand to begin, I will warm your bottom.”

  He was going to spank her? Seriously? Well, at least it wouldn’t be as bad as she’d feared. She knew that there was nothing she could do to stop him. Everything she could do had already been tried, all to no avail. She was smart, she wasn’t going to waste any mo

re energy on fighting him when she knew that she couldn’t win.

  Or so she’d thought. But the moment that his hand began to swat her bottom—she’d noticed that they were big, but his hand seemed to cover her entire butt!—she forgot her resolve. She knew well by now that no matter how hard she twisted and turned, it would make no difference. This was a man—or whatever he was—that seemed to have no trouble keeping her exactly where he wanted her. Indeed, as soon as she began to protest by trying to wrest her body away, he clamped a leg over hers, pinning both of her kicking feet so effectively that she couldn’t move her legs at all.

  “This hurts!” she howled.

  “That is the point.”

  While intellectually she understood that, it didn’t make it any easier to endure. Binnix’s larger-than-life hand came smacking down again and again, no matter how loudly she yelped. And then, when her eyes began to prickle with tears, she felt him lift the clothing that was covering her.

  “What are you doing?” she shrieked, the panic running through her telling her that she already knew.

  “I told you that I would be taking your clothing down.”

  Somehow, in the wake of the blistering swats he’d been delivering, she’d managed to forget. “Please, I’ll be good! I promise!”

  “I don’t think the promises of you Earthlings means much.”

  Ouch. The comment didn’t sting near as much as the spanking he was giving her, but still. “Binnix! Please!” His soft, answering chuckle surprised her. What had she done? Had she pronounced it wrong?

  “That is the first time,” he told her, his hand smacking with each and every word, “that you have said my name. Normally, I instruct those I am punishing to call me ‘Master’ but this once, I will allow it. I find that I like the sound of my name on your lips.”

  “You mean you like to hear me beg,” she countered, her voice a pitiful moan.

  “That too. I cannot deny it.”

  Sarai groaned as his hand continued to smack down on her now bare flesh. It had been bad enough that, once confined to the prison, they’d given her ill-fitting, dull garb to wear. But the fact that they apparently didn’t wear underwear on this planet had left her feeling undressed even with the too long tunic draped over her body. Now she had to wonder if it had anything to do with wanting easy access to her behind.

  Even knowing that he had her firmly trapped didn’t stop her from trying with all her might to wiggle her bottom away from the unforgiving sting of his palm. When she couldn’t move so much as a muscle, frustration piled on top of the heat in her ass and made the tears prickling her eyes begin to fall down her cheeks.

  “Please,” she said again, choking on a sob. “You have to stop.”

  “Actually, I don’t. That is the beauty of being in charge. I don’t have to do anything, except provide for your needs, which is precisely what I am doing.”

  “You call abuse providing for my needs?” she demanded, beginning to sob quietly.

  “This is not abuse—whatever that means. I am providing you with discipline, which you are clearly in great need of.”

  She disagreed, vehemently, but like her ability to move, telling him so was quickly becoming an impossibility as her throat and nose clogged with tears. If there’d ever been a time in her life when she’d been sorer, she couldn’t remember it. Her cheeks burned, and the pain kept increasing to the point where she couldn’t concentrate on anything else. Only knowing from several failed attempts that she couldn’t fight her way free kept her from trying. It seemed that she truly was his prisoner, trapped over his lap until he deemed it fit to set her free. And from the way things were going, she began to doubt that he ever would.

  But then, quite suddenly, he did. Though it took her several minutes to realize it, his hand stilled and came to rest on her lower back. She would have thought that the pain in her bottom would fade, but his stopping didn’t stop the prickling burn that worked its way over her sensitive skin, burrowing deeper into her cheeks until it felt like the heat was coming from the inside.

  When her sobs softened, they morphed into soft moans of pain. Once she’d quieted down, Binnix began to speak.

  “I have spanked you to give you a demonstration of what to expect when you break the rules while under my care. This, or some punishment like it, is what you can expect to happen each and every time you break the rules I set. The warming of your bottom was to pay me for your escape attempt.”

  Oh, how dearly she had paid! She would have to remember in the future not to get caught. She now understood why in the movies people attempting to escape traveled with small pills to swallow in the event of being captured.

  “Now, you will pay for the lie you told.”

  She craned her neck so that she might look at him, not even minding the fact that he would see the sheer terror on her face. “Please, you can’t!”

  He stared back at her, impassively. “I certainly can.”

  Damn these people and their literal meanings! “What I mean is, I already hurt so much.”

  Binnix considered this for all of a second. “How much you hurt is not my concern. My concern is making certain that, to the best of my ability, I give you incentive not to disobey the rules again.”

  To the best of his ability—that was exactly what worried her. Suddenly, an idea struck. She didn’t know if she would be able to persuade him, but she knew that it was her only chance, so she was going to give it everything she had.

  “As you’ve pointed out, I’m not from this planet, and the rules on mine were very different from yours.”

  He seemed to be considering her words, and Sarai began to feel cautiously optimistic. “Yes. And so?”

  “And so, on my planet I am considered an adult. I am responsible for my actions, yes, and held accountable by my government. However, on my planet, neither running away from someone nor lying is punishable by being hit.”

  “Flogging?”

  She shrank back in horror at the idea. “No.”

  “A fight to the death?”

  “No! Of course not!”

  “What would the authorities on your planet do, then?”

  “Lying isn’t really something they punish for,” Sarai began thoughtfully. “Unless it’s to the government. And then, generally, you’re fined.”

  “What do this mean?”

  “You have to pay money.”

  Binnix shook his head, clearly disgusted. “Your planet has very weak authorities.”

  She opened her mouth to contradict him, but slowly closed it again. He had a point.

  “Why do you tell me this?”

  “I’m just saying, since technically I don’t know the rules of your planet—your rules—then it’s unfair to hold me accountable to them and punish me for breaking them.” After she’d made her argument, she held her breath, waiting to see what he would say.

  “You would think that it was common knowledge that you shouldn’t tell lies.”

  True—but she wasn’t going to share that with him if it had even the slightest chance of helping her get out of trouble now. “I can understand that now that I am your planet, you want me to conform to your rules. And I will do that, to the best of my ability.” She didn’t bother to add that she didn’t plan on being on it very long. “But all I am asking for now is a bit of fairness.”

  “I suppose,” he grumbled, “that the authorities on your planet are always fair, are they?”

  Ha! Not hardly. “Well…they’re not perfect, but everyone tries to be fair as much as possible.”

  Binnix considered this. Sarai observed his profile, unreadable, with godlike beauty, hardly daring to hope that she might have won him over.

  “Typically a plea for leniency goes before the council,” he remarked. “But, in this case, I shall grant your request.”

  Sarai let her breath out in a relieved whoosh. She’d won! She hardly dared believe it. Maybe he wasn’t so bad, after all. She squirmed, and her bottom throbbed in response to the tiny movement. OK, he was definitely as bad as she’d thought, but maybe there was hope for a late-in-life reform.

  “I was going to give you ten with the flogger, but I have decided to let you off with three, so that you get merely a taste.”

  Her mouth dropped open. This was what he called leniency? “That sounds awful!”

  He stared down at her, genuinely seeming confused. “You would wish I reverse the decision?”

  It was official: there was absolutely no hope for him. “I would wish for you not to do it at all!”

  “Oh, that would be impossible. I have already told you that you will be whipped, and so you shall. I always keep my word.”

  Which might be a more attractive quality if the promises he made didn’t seem to strictly pertain to awful things!

  “I am going to set you down now and you will bend over the chair,” he explained, even as he picked her up and set her on her feet. “You will place your hands on the seat of the chair and hold on. If you move during any of the lashes—that is to say, if you attempt to run away again, or block your bottom from me in any way—then we will start over. If we have to start over more than once, I will tie you down to administer the lashes.”

  She was beginning to think her mouth might never close again. Like her mother always said, if you keep making that face, it’s going to freeze that way! He couldn’t be serious! And yet, even as the thought crossed her mind, she knew that he very much was.

  “Do you understand?”

  She understood that she should have gone with her first instincts and never should have gotten on that shuttle on the first place. That she understood loud and clear. Still, she made herself nod.

  “Good.” He rose to his feet. “I will get the flogger. Bend over as I have instructed.” Binnix did not wait to see if she would obey—clearly, he expected that she would—but began to move across the room, to wherever the dreaded flogger was, she imagined.

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