Bound to the Commander

by Libby Campbell

  She shook her head furiously.

  He removed his hand, watching her face with resolute determination. She suppressed a nervous shiver at what she saw in his eyes.

  He shrugged as if he had no choice. “If you insist on holding onto secrets, then I’m going to give you something else to hold onto. Tonight you will sleep wearing nothing but a butt plug and a harness. Every time you move, it will remind you that you have been a naughty girl. Is that clear?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “I don’t think I heard you properly.” His tone was kind, as though schooling a difficult puppy.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Of course you can avoid this reminder by telling me honestly what is bothering you. Last chance: do you want to tell me what’s on your mind?”

  Pepper shook her head.

  “Right.” Quinn sounded disappointed. “You’ve made your choice.”

  He got out of the bath and dried himself before lifting Pepper out. Her bottom still throbbed from the paddle so she stood passively and let him dry her, trying not to react when he rubbed her breasts and drew the towel between her legs.

  When he bent her over the counter and raised her bottom in the air, she didn’t resist. He left her in that position when he went into the bedroom, only to return with a leather harness and a small butt plug.

  “I’ve been saving this for a special occasion. I knew we’d need this someday.”

  With that he applied lube to his fingers and circled her butthole. “Just getting you ready,” he said. Then he reached for the butt plug, opened her clean folds, and rubbed it against her clit.

  “Say hello to your sleeping buddy,” he murmured as he pushed it into her now ready back passage.

  Pepper moaned with shame and delight as Quinn fitted the harness in place, tightening the buckles.

  “I can’t walk wearing this.”

  “Yes, you can, little sparrow. If you disobey me again in the future, you may find yourself wearing it all day at work.” He pulled the crotch strap tighter to underscore his threat before releasing it to a more tolerable tension.

  When he offered her his hand to help her to bed, Pepper bowed her head.

  “Thank you, sir,” she said, wishing she could share the terrible doubts that ate at her. The butt plug was dreadful and wonderful all at once. It confirmed Quinn’s love of her and his authority over her.

  She loved him for all of that and more.

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Suspended Sentence

  Early the next morning Quinn woke and his hands traced the straps of the harness. He pulled it tight and the dildo pushed further into Pepper’s backside. She winced and willed herself not to push his hand away.

  “Do you have anything to tell me this morning?” he whispered in her ear.

  “No, sir.” Pepper’s smile was vulnerable and courageous at the same time.

  In that moment he resolved, as he’d done every morning since she’d started sharing his bed, that he wanted to wake to the vision of her smile every day of his life.

  Quinn undid the buckles on the harness and made love to her quickly, as if fucking her would implant a part of him on her, would claim her as his in ways that would ward off other men.

  Pepper purred with pleasure as they made love but as soon as they were finished, she climbed out of bed. “The car will be here soon,” she said.

  Quinn brought a breakfast tray to the room so they could grab a bite to eat as they dressed. He was ready first so went downstairs to wait. When the Tribunal Guard car arrived, he called Pepper and handed her bags to the driver-guard.

  As Pepper walked down the stairs, adjusting her shoulder bag, her sensuous body made him want to take her all over again. He longed to run his hands through the shiny hair that curled loosely over her shoulders.

  She walked into his open arms for a hug and a long, wet kiss. As her nipples hardened through the fabric of her soft red sweater, it was all he could do to resist caressing them. But he didn’t want to make her late for the princess.

  “What are the rules of your trip?” He bit the inside of his cheek in an effort to make his swelling cock behave.

  She smiled. “Straight to Rosemoor via Torpeth. No detours. No side trips. No more than three days in Rosemoor.”

  “Correct.” He nodded his approval. “And what did I tell you to think about while you’re gone?”

  Her face darkened as she stepped away from him. “The secret I don’t want to share with you.”

  “What do you think might happen to you if you return, still unwilling to share your worries?”

  She shook her head with her lips pressed into a tight line.

  “Do you want me to say it?”

  She shrugged.

  He lifted her chin to make sure her eyes met his. “It’s entirely possible that if you come back still unwilling to tell me whatever is bothering you, you will wear a butt plug more often, as a frequent reminder that things that are hidden still exist. What we can’t see and don’t confess to can hurt or control us.”

  She gulped loudly, only too aware that he meant what he said. Maybe she wouldn’t be coming back from this trip. If her suspicions were confirmed, she might never want to see him again.

  He touched her cheek so kindly, it erased the threat he’d just made. His warm hand stirred the memory of the way he had taken her to heaven and back during the night. Her body twitched in response and once again her panties were soaked.

  Her body had no trouble responding to him. But her heart hesitated.

  Only one day earlier, she would have sworn she loved him. Maybe she still did. She wanted to. More than that, she wanted to trust him. But she couldn’t still the nagging suspicion that he was the person who’d authorized the order for her father to be sent to Silvelea and her mother to be delivered to the Healing and Rehabilitation Camp.

  She planted one last, chaste kiss on his cheek.

  He lifted one of her hands to his lips and said, “My love goes with you, little sparrow. Always.”

  His voice was like a caress and she wanted to tell him everything but she couldn’t.

  * * *

  Gael was waiting at her hotel with four guards all within a few paces of her. That made seven guards in total, counting Pepper’s usual shadows and the driver assigned to them for the trip. When Gael climbed into Pepper’s ride, her entourage joined Pepper’s guards in the lead and trailing vehicles.

  As they left Rosewyld behind, Pepper looked at the ocean that had seemed so monstrous and frightening the day she arrived. With little wind, the water spread out like jeweled glass. The sea hadn’t killed her parents. They might still be alive. A small flicker of hope rose in her heart.

  The convoy stopped at the Raven’s Lair in Torpeth for the first night. Pepper and Gael shared the lavish suite where Pepper had stayed with Quinn. Pepper insisted Gael take the master suite. She was quite happy with smaller bedroom she said, without pointing out to Gael that the room could be locked to act as a holding pen for uncooperative travel companions.

  The next day, knowing they’d arrive in Rosemoor that night, both Pepper and Gael packed away their denim skirts. They slipped on the loose midi-dresses, covered their hair with scarves, and tied on the clunky brown boots as stipulated by the Handbook.

  Gael embraced the dressing process the way children welcome the chance to don a costume and become someone else. Pepper suffered through it, knowing she no longer fit in Rosemoor but didn’t have a place of her own in Rosewyld either.

  On that last leg, they stopped at the rest area where Pepper and Quinn had their fateful hike. Pepper mentioned the waterfall at the top of the trail and Gael begged to see it. Pepper shook her head. She didn’t want to be reminded of that early humiliation.

  “Please. I’d love to just sit in nature for a bit. I was on a boat for like forever.” Gael stared up the hill as if she might catch a glimpse of the waterfall. “C’mon. This might be our only chance for a hike together. Look—we’re wearing the perfect boo
ts.”

  Gael had shown Pepper such kindness, Pepper couldn’t refuse her. Neither of them had the clout to order the guards to let them hike alone but Gael ordered them to keep their distance. They could keep Pepper and her in sight but under no circumstances were they to be within earshot.

  “With all these guards around, you’d never know Elsinania is a peaceful nation, would you?” Pepper asked, glancing over her shoulder.

  “You must need a lot of lighthouses to keep everyone so obedient,” Gael teased.

  “Lighthouses again!” Pepper exclaimed. “Could you please tell exactly what goes on in the Teardrop Lighthouse?”

  Gael laughed shyly. “It’s nothing fatal, although there were moments when I wished the ground would have opened up and swallowed me. Kai sent me there for disobeying him.” She thought for a moment. “I spent three nights there and survived. No permanent damage.”

  “No permanent damage? What does that mean? Temporary damage?”

  “More like permanent change. Temporary pain.”

  “And...?” Pepper forced out that one word to keep Gael talking.

  “I had lots of time to think about why I’d been sent there. The solitude didn’t bother me much because I like being on my own, but I still haven’t forgotten the punishments.”

  “Punishments?” Pepper was interested in the penalties, wondering what other torments might be in her future if she stayed with Quinn.

  “Yes, the old-fashioned type, on the softest, safest place, on the rump.” Gael ended that sentence with finality, indicating that she didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

  But Pepper did. Everything that Quinn had done to her so far had both frightened and excited her. She wanted to know if she was alone in her whirlwind of emotion. The best way to get a person to share a secret was to open with one of her own.

  “Quinn has spanked me many times,” she said flatly, half turning her head away as if she didn’t really want Gael to hear. “The first time was on this very trail and I’d only known him a few hours. It was crazy. He spanked my bare butt and it hurt. A lot. At the same time, it turned me on. That hasn’t changed. The physical discipline is painful but, in every other way, in the best ways of all, it sets me free. Afterward I feel safe and protected.”

  She shook her head, fighting to make sense of her own conflicted response to finding comfort in being spanked. “Maybe I’m crazy.”

  “If you’re crazy, then so am I.” Gael took Pepper’s hand and they walked along, swinging their arms.

  With a glance over her shoulder, Gael said, “Before Kai, no one would dare spank the crown princess. I was furious the first time the first time he did it too. But, when he finished, the afterglow was quite pleasant.”

  A soft, distant look settled on her face as she remembered Kai’s loving discipline. Then, shaking herself back to the present, she asked, “Quinn spanked you here? On this trail?”

  “I tried to run away from him.” Pepper smiled at the memory of her impetuous move.

  “These dominant Devmaerean men don’t like that much, do they?”

  “That’s putting it mildly.”

  “The worst thing is...” Pepper lowered her voice again. She stopped, looked at where the guards trailed a discreet distance behind. “Can I trust you?”

  “You can.” Gael waved at her baggy dress in disgust. “Knowing that some people in your nation are being forced to dress like this it tells me a lot. I saw the luxury and opulence of your capital city. Torpeth looked like its poor cousin, in spite of its fine hotel. Somehow, I suspect Rosemoor will be plainer still. I’ve been taught to eliminate injustice wherever I see it. My sense is that below Elsinania’s quiet, peaceful crust, there is a lot of inequality. I haven’t got much time here, but I’ll help you where I can.”

  “What I told you when we first met was the truth.” Pepper’s voice quavered. “The Elsinania Lighthouse is a holiday destination. People go into lotteries for the privilege of taking their families there.” Her voice trailed off as she remembered what Wynne had told her. How many other couples thought they were going there as a reward only to face a very different fate.

  They climbed the steps that led them to the pool beside the cascading water. Swollen with the autumn rains, the waterfall splashed into the pond, sparkling in the sunlight. Its soft burbling made a soothing musical backdrop.

  “There’s only one problem,” Pepper said. “My parents won the lottery twice. First to take my sister and me there for a vacation. The second time they won a renew your vows getaway.”

  Pepper sank down on a boulder beside the pool. “Everyone said how lucky they were to win twice. No one had ever heard of that happening.” She closed her eyes and felt the ice sink into her belly just as it had when she’d learned that her parents had died.

  Gael sat beside her and wrapped a gentle arm around her.

  “They never came back, did they?” Gael’s voice sounded far away.

  “How did you know that?”

  “I’m a sympathetic,” Gael said simply. “I read people easily. Some people I read easier and, in more depth, than others. Your sorrow over your parents wasn’t this sharp and brittle when we first met. What changed?”

  As Pepper poured out her secrets, Gael moved closer, hip touching hip. She tightened her hug, trying to ease Pepper’s grief. When Pepper finished recounting everything Wynne had told her, Gael sat back, fingertips to her lips in contemplation.

  Pepper couldn’t have said how long they sat there. She waited while Gael remained as still as a statue, lost in thought.

  As if in response to their impasse, a message buzzed on Pepper’s black-market CommBand. She took it out of her pocket and showed it to Gael. Hugo had delivered. His message included a map to the Healing and Rehabilitation Camp. It was only a twelve-hour trip from Rosemoor on a modern hover-ride. Pepper’s heart raced.

  A voice from the trail below them jolted Pepper.

  “Is everything okay up there?” shouted one of the guards.

  Gael rose to her feet and went to the top of the steps so the guards could see her. She put her hands on her hips. “We’re fine. We have a few matters of urgent national importance to discuss. It’s imperative that you keep your distance and let no one else up here.”

  The guards bowed. “As you wish, your highness,” they said in unison, backing away.

  Gael turned back to Pepper, a smile splitting her face. “I know exactly what we’re going to do.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Changing Directions

  Crowds of curious people lined the only road into Rosemoor and cheered the arrival of Crown Princess Gael of Senne along with their returning Sister Pepper. Gael planted a wide smile on her face and waved first to one side of the ride, then to the other. Pepper sat, dumbfounded, unsure what she should do.

  “Smile and wave, like I do.” Gael spoke without moving her lips.

  “I’m not a princess. I’m nobody,” Pepper protested.

  “Wrong,” said Gael, her mouth as still as a ventriloquist’s. “You’re the commander’s mate and best friends with a princess now. That makes you a celebrity.”

  Pepper waved and smiled despite her sense of claiming some privilege or fame that wasn’t rightly hers.

  When their convoy stopped at the one and only small hotel in Rosemoor, the county chief was there to greet them, wearing her scarlet sash and silver medal, puffed up with her usual self-importance. Behind her, Lily and Brinley waited, barely suppressing smiles of delight. Brinley wasn’t looking at the vehicles as much as he was checking over his shoulder to see who was noticing him as he stood close to the county chief.

  Gael emerged from the car first. After waving and smiling at the crowd, she accepted flowers from a schoolgirl. She had a whispered conversation with the county chief that Pepper could just hear. Gael was thanking the chief for organizing the warm welcome.

  Then she straightened and nodded at Lily to join Pepper and her in their suite.

  Brinley bowed sli
ghtly and started to follow the women.

  Gael paused, waving Pepper and Lily ahead of her. “Brother Brinley, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for taking time to say hello. I hope you will excuse me if I take Sister Pepper and Sister Lily upstairs with me. We have women’s things we need to discuss.”

  A look of servile acceptance quickly masked Brinley’s fleeting frown of disappointment. “Anything you want, your highness,” he said as if she was really seeking his approval.

  Giving him a dismissive nod, Gael headed to the desk and asked to be shown to her room. Pepper and Lily trotted to keep up as the innkeeper led them to the elevator.

  “Aren’t you staying in your house?” Lily whispered to Pepper.

  “Not this time,” Pepper said. “Tell you more when we’re alone.”

  * * *

  Gael ordered the guards to sweep the room for listening devices before leaving her alone with Pepper and Lily.

  Once it was just the three of them, Pepper presented Lily with the modern dresses she’d brought. Lily held them out at arm’s length as though they were forbidden fruit, possibly toxic.

  “Everyone will be wearing dresses like this soon,” Pepper reassured her. “The commander is rewriting the Handbook, allowing citizens much more freedom in many ways.”

  “I’d feel naked in something like this.” Lily shook her head. “Brinley wouldn’t allow it.”

  Gael picked up an apple from the fruit bowl and bit into it. She chewed for a moment before saying, “Fuck Brinley. We don’t need men to tell us how to dress, do we?”

  “Not just men. The Handbook,” Lily corrected her.

  “And who wrote the Handbook?” Gael asked.

  “The Tribunal, the highest citizens in our country,” Lily answered mechanically.

  “A man,” Pepper corrected. “An ordinary fallible person.”

  “Lily, I’ve met a lot of your prominent citizens and believe me they’re not following any dress code,” Gael said with obvious amusement. “In fact, I didn’t see any women wearing one of these poor excuses for a dress until Pepper put hers on today to come here. I agreed to wear one just so I would fit in better.”