Worse than the pain, though, was the humiliation and the feeling of betrayal. Valen had been willing—even eager—to punish her. She wasn’t so upset about him spanking her bottom—that had always been a fantasy of hers, though she had never expected it to happen in such a sudden and public way. But the way he had paddled her pussy…that hurt. And the pain hadn’t been erotic, either—just really sharp and stinging and, well, painful.
He should have known better, she thought. She felt shaken and betrayed. Valen had agreed to paddle her in such a sensitive area without a moment’s hesitation—how could he be so harsh so easily? She wanted a stern Master, but there were limits.
Still, at least he stopped when you said your safe word, whispered a thoughtful little voice in her head. He didn’t continue after you shouted out, “Peaches!”
But I shouldn’t have had to say it, Selena argued with herself. He should have known the pussy paddling would be too intense! He shouldn’t have agreed to do it so easily! He—
“All right now, little one, just lie still. I have something to help with the pain.”
Valen’s deep voice interrupted her resentful thoughts and Selena looked up, through teary eyes, to see that he held a little silver pot of ointment in one large hand and a damp cloth in the other.
“What…what are you going to do?” she asked, hating how broken and shaky her voice sounded in her own ears. “Whatever it is, I don’t want it. You’ve already done enough.”
He frowned.
“You sound angry, little one.”
“I’m not your little one.” Selena glared up at him.
His frowned deepened.
“Like it or not, you are. As long as you’re on Ma’shorka Centra, you’re still my Dependent Female. Now are you going to lie still so that I can apply this healing salve, or do I have to hold you down?”
“You mean the way you held me down when you spanked me? When you spanked my…between my legs?” Selena demanded. Fresh tears came to her eyes—tears of anger, this time—not pain. “You were awfully eager to go along with Empress the Third’s demands,” she accused him. “Even though you knew she’d just staged the whole thing!”
Instead of getting angry or shouting, Valen sighed and sat beside her on the large mattress.
“Do you know why I went along with her unreasonable demands?” he asked, searching Selena’s eyes with his own. “Do you think I did it because I liked hitting you—hurting you? Didn’t I tell you I don’t derive pleasure from giving pain?”
“Why, then?” Selena whispered. She wanted to look away from him but he seemed to have captured her gaze and she couldn’t break the lock between them.
“Because I didn’t want to see you wind up in some Goddess-forsaken Ma’shorkan hellhole of a prison!” he exclaimed. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is for a non-Ma’shorkan to beat any kind of charge leveled against them by a native Ma’shorkan? Especially by a Royal?”
“N-no,” Selena faltered uncertainly.
“It’s nearly fucking impossible,” Valen growled. Leaving the salve and the damp cloth on the bed, he got up and started pacing. “You think I wanted to hurt you? That I wanted to paddle your soft little pussy?” he demanded. “Seven Hells, Selena—I’d rather have cut off my own fucking hand! But I had no choice. I knew—and Empress the Third knew as well—that if you went to the High Court, your fate was sealed.”
“Really?” Selena looked at him with wide eyes.
“Yes, fucking really,” he growled, running a hand through his hair distractedly. “You’d have spent the rest of your extremely short life in the worst conditions imaginable! Rape and murder are common—even expected—the Ma’shorkan guards don’t give a damn about the prisoners. And even I wouldn’t have been able to get you out. The usual sentence is ‘a thousand lifetimes of hard labor’—but you’re lucky to last a single solar week if you don’t have connections on the inside. Did you know that?”
“No,” Selena whispered. She’d had an idea that he didn’t want her to go to court, but she hadn’t realized how truly awful such an outcome would have been. And she didn’t think Valen was exaggerating either—he ought to know exactly how the Ma’shorkan court system worked—after all, he was a Defender and it was his job to argue for his clients in that very same system.
Valen dropped suddenly to his knees at the end of the bed, which put them eye-to-eye.
“I’m sorry I hurt you, little one,” he murmured, cupping her face gently in one big hand. “Sorry I broke your trust and made you say your safe word. But I was trying to save you. Do you understand?”
“I…I think so.” Selena nodded and blinked back tears. It was scary to think how close she’d come to spending the rest of her life in a Ma’shorkan prison! “I’m sorry, Valen,” she whispered. “I didn’t know—I thought—”