Their approach to a village brought her hope, but upon entering it, that hope was gone. It was deserted. All but one of the few remaining structures were broken down, and no one was in sight.
“We’ll put her in the pillory. I’m hungry,” the one behind her said.
The structure came into her view as they approached the far end of the abandoned village. Gemma’s heart raced, and her whole body beginning to tremble. They were going to lock her in a pillory. She’d be at their mercy, they could do what they pleased, and she’d not be able to defend herself.
They brought the horses to a stop, and the brothers dismounted, the one behind her releasing her from the saddle and pulling her down unceremoniously. They both walked over to the pillory, the one dragging her with him.
“Let me go!” she yelled, managing to kick the one holding onto her.
He turned to glare at her. “Don’t make me mess up that pretty face! Be careful!” he warned.
She glared back but didn’t move to strike him again.
“Hold her while I get this bracer off her,” the other one said.
His brother complied, holding her tightly by the arms as the one unbound her wrists then slowly stripped her of the bracer she’d only just received that morning. Gemma now added guilt to her list of worries as she remembered Sir William giving her the gift just a few hours ago. She’d been so stupid to run off.
“Very nice,” he said, examining the jewels.
The other man pulled her over to the pillory and pushed her head down into the center space while holding her hands behind her back.
“Make it easy on yourself, whore,” he threatened. “Or I’ll be whipping you later.”
She responded with another tug at her wrists, and he pushed on the back of her head roughly to hold her until his brother could help. Within a matter of moments, she was trapped, and the men stood back and smiled. She glared at them, feeling both the utter humiliation and the helplessness of her predicament, her wrists and head trapped, her body bent forward, trapped.
“Not so much fight in you now, is there?” the one asked.
“Let’s eat,” the brother said. “We can play with her afterwards. She’s not going anywhere.”
The brothers turned to go, and Gemma watched them. It was all she could do as tears of utter hopelessness threatened. How was she going to get out of this?
* * *
Sir William watched the two men make their way into one of the old structures in the village. He then turned to look at Gemma. Anger, frustration, and relief at finding her battled within him. She had brought this on herself and had, once again, taken time from their mission. Her sister’s life depended on him, and now she had found herself her own trouble. Trouble he would have to extricate her from.
He dismounted. He needed to rescue her, but he also wanted to make sure these two men wouldn’t be doing this to anyone else again.
Drawing his sword, he walked to where Gemma would surely see him, and she did, immediately. He could see the hope in her eyes even from the distance between them. Putting his finger to his lips to ensure she remained silent, he went to the door behind which the men had disappeared and kicked it open.
“What the—” one of the brother’s turned.
The other threw the knife he was holding at Sir William, who managed to duck out of the way so it struck the frame of the door behind him. He reached for it without taking his eyes of the men and pulled it free from the wall.
“Gentlemen,” Sir William spoke. “I believe you have taken something that belongs to me,” he said walking inside.
“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” one of them said, drawing his sword and walking toward Sir William.
“You sure you want to fight?” he asked the man.
“Oh yes, I’m quite sure,” the man answered.
Sir William smiled and raised his sword to touch it to the other man’s. In the next instant, the three of them were outside, and the fight began, two against one.
* * *
Gemma watched in horror as the three burst out of the house and onto the street before her. All three had swords drawn, and the two men were coming at Sir William. They weren’t as incompetent as she had imagined them to be, and she found herself screaming warnings more than once as the three lunged and struck, the sound of metal on metal clashing in the still air.
The two men challenged Sir William, but he could hold his own. Gemma realized how well-trained he was when at one point both brothers were lunging and giving him almost no room to strike but only left him defending, she watched him throw a small dagger he held and catch one of the brothers square in the chest.
“No!” the brother called out as the one who had been hit stumbled backwards, dropping his sword and clutching the dagger lodged inside his chest. She watched as he fell backwards and his brother dropped to his knees next to him. He pulled the dagger out, but from where Gemma stood trapped, she knew it wouldn’t matter. The damage was done.
Sir William held his sword to the neck of the man on his knees. Gemma couldn’t hear the words they spoke, but once the body of his brother lay still, the man rose to his feet. Sir William made him drag the dead man’s body to his horse, and there he had him haul it over the animal’s back. The man then mounted their tired-looking beast, and with one swift strike from the flat of Sir William’s sword, the horse took off fast into the woods.
Once all trace of them had disappeared, Sir William turned to Gemma.
“Oh, Sir William! I’m so happy to see you,” she began. “How did you find me?” she asked, watching his face as he approached her. His unsmiling face.
Without a word, he set his sword down against a nearby post and came to inspect her hands, her wrists, her neck.
“If you’ll lift it off, I can move again. This is the worst thing… what are you doing?” she asked when he went behind her.
“You could have been killed,” he said, his voice tightly controlled. “And have you considered what you have cost your sister?”
She gasped when in the next instant, he raised the back of both her dress and her shift high and tucked them inside the neck of her corset.
“What are you doing?” she asked again, her voice quiet, unable to turn her head to see. She now stood trapped in the pillory, that alone humiliating enough, but with her back bared—her bottom bared—she felt absolutely undone.
“Do you have any idea what your stubborn actions could have cost?” he asked.
She heard the sound of him releasing his sword belt.
“Sir William!” she yelled, her skin prickling with the realization of what he was about to do. “No, please!”
She hadn’t even processed the sound before leather burned its mark on the flesh of her bottom, the lash wrapping painfully around her hip. Gemma screamed with the stroke, trying to free herself but unable to.
“What will it take?” he began, striking again.
“Please!” she begged when the next one seared her bottom.
“For you to learn,” he continued, ignoring her cries altogether as he lashed her again and again. The next two lashed against her sit spots. Although the leather just touched her sex, the sting of it was so painful on so sensitive a spot that she felt as though she would pass out.
But she did not as he laid another six out, these on the backs of her thighs.
Gemma screamed with each stroke, and it was her only outlet since she was unable to move, trapped as she was. Her voice came out strange, uneven as she gave herself over to her punishment.
“What will it take for you to learn to obey?” These next six were the worst of all and Gemma’s body sagged forward. Each stroke came fast on the heels of the last, so she had not a moment’s reprieve.
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry. Please stop, Sir William! Please stop!”
“Six more.”
“No! Please no!”
He paused for a moment and came up close behind her. His face touched hers as his hand gr
ipped one buttock hard. She flinched and gasped, clenching her bottom tight.
“Do you have any idea how those men would have used you?” he asked, his voice a menacing whisper. “Do you know what they would have done to a girl like you?” He now gripped both buttocks, pulling them apart, his fingers finding her sex.
“Please don’t!” She stilled, tears streaming from her eyes.
“Do you know what they would have done to you here?” he asked, his breath again on her neck, her ear. His fingers touched the opening of her sex, then his thumb and forefinger found her nub. He rubbed.
She gasped, her eyes going wide, her body perfectly still. This sensation was new and very different to what he’d just subjected her to.
“Or here?” he asked, and just as she began to relax into him, he released her clit and his fingers traveled up the cleft between her buttocks to her bottom hole.
At that, her breath stopped. His fingers were slick with her juices, and she felt the pressure against that most private entrance.
“Think of all the ways they could have had you,” he said as he circled her anus with his thick finger, pressing against it. “All while you were trapped here, naked, bound, at their mercy.”
He pushed and circled, and the sensation was stranger and more confusing than she could have imagined. But when his finger penetrated the tight ring, she clenched her cheeks as tight as she could. Sir William made a sound when she did this, and with his other hand, he forced her open.
“Please, sir,” she begged quietly, unsure what exactly she was begging for, grateful for the moment that he could not see her face.
He pushed his finger deeper into her hole, and once it was fully in, he pressed his body against her back. “But they wouldn’t have used their fingers,” he said. She understood as his hardened cock pushed against her low back through his pants. “They would have made you their whore, Gemma,” he said, slowly pulling his finger out before thrusting it back inside hard.
She gasped again. “Please,” she begged again.
He held it there, gripping her hip with one hand as he pressed as deep as his middle finger would go. He pulled her backwards slightly with his finger still buried inside her.
She whimpered in shame.
“You will take your next six, and you will count each one. Once I’m finished whipping you, you will thank me. And if you ever, ever disobey me again, you’ll have something bigger than my finger inside your bottom. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” she whispered quickly, her voice quivering.
“Good,” he said, pulling his finger out slowly, the sensation of pain mixing with the tiniest hint of an unfamiliar arousal. But that was finished when he resumed his position to continue with her whipping.
Gemma braced herself, her bottom already throbbing with heat and stinging with the pain of the leather belt.
“Ask me to whip you. Ask me to punish you and tell me why you’re being punished.”
She cried tears of humiliation and of dread at the pain her imminent punishment would bring. She closed her eyes, knowing she would have to get through these next six before he would release her. “Please punish me for running away, for costing valuable time. For getting myself into trouble.”
The first stroke caught her at the top of her buttocks, and she gasped with the pain.
“Count.”
“One, sir.”
The next one was just beneath the last one, and she stomped her feet on the ground as she cried out.
“Two, sir.”
“Spread your legs wider and don’t clench,” he ordered.
“Yes, sir,” she said, doing as he told her, all modestly lost to the pain as he struck again.
“Three!” she screamed simultaneously with the strike.
The next one caught her at the juncture of her hips and buttocks.
“Four!”
The final two he delivered in quick succession across her thighs, barely giving her time to call out the count. Once it was over, Gemma stood there, her tears coming quietly, knowing she had brought this harsh punishment on herself, hating him for her humiliation, grateful to him that he had come for her, that he’d not left her.
“What do you have to say?” he asked, walking around to stand in front of her and replacing his sword belt across his waist.
“I’m sorry, sir. Thank you for my punishment,” she managed, unable to meet his eyes as her already red face flushed redder.
“Look at me.”
She shook her head, a small gesture.
He took her chin and lifted her face. “Look at me.”
She finally did.
“Look at me and say it.”
Shame stole her voice, but she managed with the smallest whisper to repeat her words.
He released her chin, retrieved his sword, and walked away, leaving her to stand as she was, her dress lifted high, her punished bottom and thighs on display.
* * *
Sir William had to walk away. He needed release. He was highly aroused, his cock hard. Seeing her trapped in the pillory, baring her, whipping her, pressing his fingers inside her hot little hole… He made some sort of sound and looked over at her displayed buttocks as she stood, still locked in place. She shifted from leg to leg, rubbing the tops of her feet alternately against her thighs, trying to relieve some of the pain.
Loosening his pants, he took hold of his cock. He turned away from her but with the image of her body, of her ass as he’d whipped it, of how it bounced as she tried to avoid the strokes but was unable to. Her striped bottom now on display branded onto his mind, the heat of her back hole still warm on his finger, he stroked himself, imagining the warmth of her around him, her wetness when he’d fingered her clit. He imagined taking her from behind, spreading her buttocks apart, pushing first into her wet pussy, then claiming her other hole. With that, his body shook, and his cock released as he, for some brief moments, lost himself in ecstasy.
Chapter Six
Gemma watched Sir William from beneath her lashes as he returned. She had since stopped crying and imagined he had left her trapped in the pillory, her skirt still raised, for a good half hour after her punishment was over. When he moved behind her without a word, she tensed immediately. But his hand on her hip was gentle, almost a caress even.
He touched the tender flesh, tracing what she imagined were the marks of his sword belt. “You’ll be sore for a few days, I believe,” he said before flipping her dress down to cover her. “But your skin is uncut.”
She stood stock still, unable to see him until she finally felt him raise the top plank of the pillory so she could free herself. She rubbed her wrists then began to massage her neck. She couldn’t yet meet his eyes.
“Gemma,” he said.
She kept her gaze to the ground, the lump in her throat making it impossible to swallow.
“Look at me,” he said, his voice gentle.
Her skin prickled, her belly felt strange, and she began to tremble.
His hand was soft as he lifted her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes. Hers were filled with tears when she turned them up to him.
“If I hadn’t come when I had,” he began, “they would have hurt you badly.”
She nodded, the stream of tears now having begun to flow. She knew that; he didn’t have to tell her that. Her next inhale was a loud sucking in of air, and her throat felt too full. He pulled her tight into his arms as she began to weep loudly.
“I’m sorry I had to punish you so harshly,” he said, holding her while her body rocked with her sobs.
“I know… it was…” she began, unable to finish a sentence without having to gasp for breath between words. “My fault.” She sucked in air. “I know what they might have done to me. I’m sorry.”
“Shh.” He held her tightly, rubbing her back. “It’s over now. You’re safe. You’re forgiven.”
At that she found herself tucking her body even closer to his, unable to understand her confused emotions, wondering
how she could take comfort in the arms of the man who had just whipped and humiliated her so mercilessly. She should hate him, shouldn’t she? But she didn’t. Not at all.
At her own mental chastisement of herself, she pulled herself away and wiped her tears, putting on a long-learned, false front of bravado.
Sir William watched her, waiting to take his cue from her it seemed. Her body shook one last time with her next breath, and she forced herself to push her emotions deep inside her. She would deal with these strange new feelings later.
She took a step back and made herself meet his eyes, forcing herself not to think about what had just happened between them.
He studied her, his eyes curious, nothing angry or harsh in their now quiet blue depths. “You must be hungry,” he said, his gaze seeming to penetrate deeper, as if he were trying to read her mind.
But she wouldn’t allow that.
“I brought some bread with me from the tavern, and I’ve loaded what supplies they had into our saddlebags.” He walked over to the horses, and she followed. When he offered her the loaf of bread, she took it.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice tight, still unable to hold his gaze.
“You’re welcome.” There was an uncomfortable moment, then, “Gemma…” he began.
She looked at him, willing herself not to feel hurt, not to show her vulnerability. She should be able to do this by now. All her life, she’d put on a brave face. After the day her mother had died, she had never again allowed anyone to see her cry—not until she had learned Alys had been kidnapped. She hadn’t been willing to share her weakness. Now here was this man who could manage to bring it out of her. It wasn’t the physical pain she was crying over, no, that would have been easy. She would be sore for a few days, she knew that much. But that she could manage. It was the humiliation.
“Punishment is over. I don’t want you to feel ashamed,” he said, as if on cue.
He’d touched her there. His fingers had been on her sex. He had pushed inside her bottom. The fact that he knew it shamed her only made it worse. Her face began to crumple, but she turned away, willing herself not to hear the kindness in his words, forcing herself to collect and keep her emotions in check. It would be easier if he were cruel. If he were simply cruel. But he was not.
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